Giant Panda Twins Born At Washington Zoo

It has been 30 years that the National Zoo in Washington has been trying to breed pandas, yet more babies have died than lived on, according to ctvnews.

But Sunday saw zoo officials delirious with excitement, for they have a healthy pair of twins born to panda mom Mei Xiang.

The template for their survival has been given by Chinese breeders. They pointed out that pandas don't nurse twins. They care only for one, and leave the other to die.

But now Chinese breeders have devised a new way of saving both. They just alternate the babies' feed with the mother, while the other one is kept in an incubator.

So the breeders at the Smithsonian's National Zoo will continue performing these quick changes for as much time as it takes, and as long as Mei Xiang is fine with it.

On early Sunday morning, the first switch was successful.

"If she gets aggressive toward us, we're not going to get that close," giant panda biologist Laurie Thompson said Sunday.

This shift kept the twin pandas born two years ago at Zoo Atlanta to live on. While this was the second set of panda twins born in the United States, the first set, which had been born at the National Zoo in 1987 died within days.

Chinese scientists too have learnt to help pandas survive. While the survival rate for panda cubs was under 20 percent two decades ago, today it's above 80 percent, zoo director Dennis Kelly said.

"We've all been involved in events that don't go so well, so we are ecstatic that things are going great," said Don Neiffer, the zoo's chief veterinarian.

"The birth of an animal like a giant panda or a critically endangered Sumatran tiger is always special," Kelly said.

While pandas are endangered, with just about 1,800 living in the wild and 350 in captivity, nursing and growing twins doesn't seem to be natural to pandas mothers.

"It's very rare, obviously, for them to manage two cubs. If she were able to do it, we would certainly let her," Thompson said. "She couldn't figure out how to hold both of them. She couldn't get hold of one and have the other one under her arm and pick it up at the same time. She just kept fumbling with them."

For the first time, the zoo has five pandas in residence. In addition to Bao Bao, Mei Xiang and the new cubs, there is an adult male panda named Tian Tian. Till today, the zoo has always had just three pandas at a time.

Tian Tian was the father of her earlier cubs, but for the current twins, she received insemination from Tian Tian as well as another Chinese panda that was supposed to be a "good genetic match", always contributing to her genetic diversity.

In the coming month, the zoo staffers hope that they will be able to develop a routine that can exchange the cubs and study their growth.

"A lot of things have to happen. This is a very critical period," Neiffer said. "Until the cubs are both out walking around, acting normal, being a panda, that's probably when we'll exhale."

One of her cubs, Tai Shan, was born a decade ago and lives in China, while Bao Bao, who is two, lives at the zoo. After Bao Bao turns 4 years, the mother will go back to China, according to cnn.