BERLIN (AP) — The Berlin Zoo has much anticipated news: Meng Meng the panda is pregnant again, months after the first giant pandas born in Germany were sent to China.
The zoo said Tuesday that ultrasound scans over the weekend showed Meng Meng is expecting two cubs. They still have plenty of growing to do but the zoo expects the birth at the end of August, if all goes well, it said.
Meng Meng and male panda Jiao Qing arrived in Berlin in 2017. In August 2019, Meng Meng gave birth to Pit and Paule, also known by the Chinese names Meng Xiang und Meng Yuan, the first giant pandas born in Germany.
The twins were a star attraction in Berlin, but they were flown to China in December — a trip that was contractually agreed from the start but delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. China gifted friendly nations with its unofficial mascot for decades as part of a “panda diplomacy″ policy. The country now loans pandas to zoos on commercial terms.
Giant pandas have difficulty breeding and births are particularly welcomed. There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and a few hundred in captivity worldwide.
Meng Meng was artificially inseminated in March. The zoo noted that female pandas are only capable of reproducing for about 72 hours per year.
An embryo of a panda bear of pregnant panda Meng Meng is marked on the screen of an ultrasound machine at the panda enclosure at Berlin Zoo, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (Sebastian Gollnow/dpa via AP)
Female panda Meng Meng, who is pregnant with twins, sits in her enclosure at the Berlin Zoo, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (Sebastian Gollnow/dpa via AP)
FILE - Panda bear cubs Meng Xiang (nickname Pit), right, and Meng Yuan (nickname Paule), left, climb in their enclosure during their first birthday in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
FILE -In this April 5, 2019 file photo taken through a window female panda Meng Meng eats bamboo at its enclosure at the zoo in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, file)
