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Panda lady Huan Huan carries one of her babies in her mouth
Photo: GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP
Huan Huan means happy in Chinese and the director of the Beauval Zoo in France, Rodolphe Delord, also has a reason to be happy: On Monday night, panda lady Huan Huan gave birth to twins.
“Both babies are pink.
Both are perfectly healthy.
They look pretty big.
You're beautiful, ”Delord said.
An employee at the research center for giant pandas in Chengdu, China, who had come specially for the births, weighed one of the babies.
It weighed 149 grams.
The second animal weighed 128 grams.
According to the zoo's chief vet, Baptiste Mulot, this is a "very comforting" weight for a baby panda.
“The heavier they are, the less vulnerable they are.
This puts them in the upper range, because they should weigh between 100 and 150 grams at birth, ”the vet explained.
"The first ten days are a delicate phase"
Mulot assumes that the little bears are females.
However, the sex can only be determined with certainty in a few days.
"The first ten days are a tough time," Mulot said.
A few more weeks will pass before visitors can see the little ones.
The young would first be monitored around the clock in an incubator and alternately suckled by their mother, explained zoo director Delord.
In August 2017, Huan Huan gave birth to the first panda baby in France after artificial insemination - the male Yuan Meng.
The enthusiasm was huge, the French President's wife Brigitte Macron also visited the zoo and looked at the offspring.
However, Huan Huan is only on loan from the People's Republic to France.
China has been practicing its "panda diplomacy" since the end of the Cold War: the country does not sell the animals, but gives them to other countries for a fee.
The People's Republic is the only country where pandas still live in the wild.
According to the World Conservation Organization (IUCN), since 2016 the giant pandas are no longer considered to be “critically endangered”, but only “endangered”.
500 of the animals live in captivity, around 2000 in the wild in China.
kha / Reuters / AFP