Zoo's Pandas Produce First Cub, High Hopes

Morgan described the cub as "very vocal and fussy" -- like a newborn baby. "That means it's doing well, too."

The cub will not be named until it is 100 days old, a Chinese tradition. Under the zoo's 10-year, $10 million loan agreement with China, the cub will be sent there when it is 2 years old. Stevens said cubs generally stay with their mothers for 18 months.

The zoo's attempts to breed its first pair of giant pandas, a gift from the Chinese government to President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, were marked by repeated heartbreak. After a decade of false starts, Ling-Ling produced a cub in 1983, which died of pneumonia three hours later. She had a stillborn cub in 1984. In 1987, she bore twins; one died immediately, and the other died of an infection four days later. Her last cub died of pneumonia 23 hours after birth in 1989. Ling-Ling died in 1992, and the male, Hsing-Hsing, died in 1999.

Suzan Murray, the zoo's chief veterinarian, said that Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were older when they began reproducing and that the female had chronic urinary tract infections that put her offspring at risk. But, she added, "The first couple of weeks are a tense time, and we'll be monitoring [Mei Xiang] very closely."

Mei Xiang, whose name means "beautiful fragrance," is 6. Tian Tian, whose name means "more and more," is 7. Pandas can reproduce from about 4 years old until about 20.

Tian Tian began trying in 2002, but Mei Xiang fled up a tree. The pair mated briefly in 2003 without result. They tried last year, after which Mei Xiang was vaginally inseminated and had a false pregnancy. This year, after the pair tried to mate several times but failed, a zoo reproductive scientist injected Tian Tian's sperm directly into the female's uterus, a technique that zoo officials say has a 55 percent success rate. Panda gestation periods range between 90 and 185 days; Mei Xiang's was 120 days.

Only about 1,600 giant pandas remain in China's bamboo forests, where they are endangered by poachers and by encroaching development. But pandas also are fussy breeders. The female is in heat only two or three days a year. In zoos, detecting a pregnancy is difficult, although experts hope that eventually a combination of behavior monitoring, hormone tests and other technology can improve the odds.

Only three other zoos in the United States exhibit giant pandas -- those in Atlanta, Memphis and San Diego. The San Diego Zoo has had two successful births.

The National Zoo's happy news comes as the animal park emerges from a troubled era in which its accreditation was on provisional status for a year before being restored, a National Academy of Sciences report criticized its management, and its director, Lucy H. Spelman, resigned.

Now, in addition to the panda birth, the zoo is drawing crowds to see five cheetah cubs, will open a new panda area with double the outdoor space next year and is undergoing a 10-year, multimillion-dollar renovation.

"Is it okay if I skip?" Stevens asked as she walked toward the microphones at the zoo's morning news conference to announce the birth.

"We've been waiting so long for another cub, you wonder if it is real," she said. "We're thrilled and a little scared because we want it to go perfectly."

Staff writer Yolanda Woodlee contributed to this report.

For more about the new cub and other panda information, go tohttp://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas.