WASHINGTON — In more than three decades of trying to breed pandas at the National Zoo, there’s been plenty of heartbreak. More cubs born in Washington have died than survived, and news of a birth has often been greeted warily.
But on Sunday, zoo officials were nearly giddy. They don’t just have an apparently healthy pair of twins, born Saturday night to panda mom Mei Xiang, they have a template to follow that gives the cubs a strong chance of survival.
Pandas won’t usually nurse twins. They’ll care for one and allow the other to die. But in the past decade, Chinese breeders have come up with a system: Every several hours, they swap out the cubs, giving each one the critical time it needs to nurse and bond with its mother. Meanwhile, the other one is kept in an incubator. Panda keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo will continue performing these delicate swaps as long as it’s needed. Two decades ago, the survival rate for panda cubs was under 20 percent. Now, it’s more than 80 percent, zoo director Dennis Kelly said.
