Giant Panda Cub Debut This Week At The San Diago Zoo

This week the San Diago Zoo debuted it's new star.  Here is a gallery of photos taken this afternoon as the new star, Xiao Liwu, explores his new home.
  The San Diego Zoo has had a love affair with giant pandas ever since two of the black-and-white bears came to visit in 1987. After years of red tape and tons of application paperwork, the Zoo and China agreed on a 12-year research loan of two giant pandas, Bai Yun and Shi Shi. A brand-new exhibit area was built for our panda guests, which has since been expanded and renovated and is now called the Giant Panda Research Station. We currently have four giant pandas—Bai Yun, Gao Gao, Yun Zi, and our newest cub, born on July 29, 2012.

Our pandas enjoy deluxe accommodations with larger exhibit areas and extra vegetation and climbing structures. You'll enjoy the newer exhibit area too, with its winding, elevated viewing paths that give great panda-watching opportunities of the two main enclosures.


Visiting the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park helps support our studies of wild giant panda populations. San Diego Zoo Global established its first conservation science program for wild pandas at the Foping Nature Reserve in China in 2006. The program utilizes radiotelemetry to research several important areas to futher our understanding of natural giant panda behavior and ecology. These include mating strategies and genetic diversity of panda populations, denning ecology, habitat use and movement patterns, and human disturbance.

"Long day time for a little nap."