Panda cubs Huanlili and Yuandudu born in France take first steps in public
- The female cubs were born in August to parents Huan Huan and Yuan Zi, who are on loan from China for 10 years
- France’s football star Kylian Mbappe and China’s Olympic champion in diving Zhang Jiaqi are the twins’ godparents
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First, a steady crawl. Then a short clumsy slide across the slick stone floor at their home at the Beauval Zoo near Paris. Then, finally, the big show as the twin giant panda cubs took their first steps in public on Saturday.
The female twins were born on August 2 to mother, Huan Huan, and father, Yuan Zi. The parents are at the Beauval Zoo in the south of Paris, on a 10-year loan from China aimed at highlighting good ties with France.
The twin cubs, named Huanlili and Yuandudu, are their second and third cubs, after the first panda ever born in France, Yuan Meng, in 2017.
In a video released by the zoo on Saturday, the twin cubs are seen clumsily making their way around the territory. At some point both attempt to climb nearby rocks as a caretaker looks on and films them with a smartphone.
The cubs will spend a few years in France before being sent to China.
France’s football star Kylian Mbappe and the Chinese Olympic champion in diving, Zhang Jiaqi, are the twins’ godparents after the athletes announced the female cubs’ names during a ceremony in November.
‘Adorable’: twin panda cubs at Tokyo zoo named Xiao Xiao, Lei Lei
There are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China and about 500 in captivity worldwide.
Panda reproduction, in captivity or in the wild, is notoriously difficult as experts say few pandas get in the mood or even know what to do when they do.
Further complicating matters, the window for conception is small since female pandas are in heat only once a year for about 24-48 hours.
Huan Huan and her partner Yuan Zi – the star attractions at Beauval – thrilled zoo officials in March when they managed to make “contact”, as they put it, eight times in a weekend.
Veterinarians also carried out an artificial insemination, just to be sure.
China for decades gifted friendly nations with its unofficial national mascot in what was known as “panda diplomacy”.
More recently the country has loaned pandas to zoos on commercial terms.
