Officials at Guangzhou's Chimelong Safari Park have reported the birth of three pandas from mother Juxiao. Both the mother and cubs are healthy.

 

Baby pandas most often do not survive after birth. Stories from site to site detail these panda births. Therefore both writers and researchers thought that triplets surviving birth would be impossible. New reports have proved that theory wrong.

 

Giant pandas are quite rare when compared to many animals. As such environmental advocates have put an intense focus on educating people about their plight. Around 3,000 giant pandas exist in captivity and only around 1,600 live in the wild. Part of this is due to the fact that giant pandas have trouble conceiving and many do not survive after birth.

 

Part of this comes from the fact that pandas have a tendency to show characteristics of being pregnant year-round and sometimes their bodies reabsorb the fetus. Another difficulty lies in the fact that in captivity pandas do not naturally know methods for courtship and copulation.

 

Biology in pandas also confounds researchers (and writers) because they often show false positives for pregnancies. Therefore researchers do not like to announce the event until they are sure.

 

All of these factors add up to a scientific and environment community that never believed that triplets could be born. Zoo staff are doing their utmost to care for the cubs and insure that these do not pass away in a way which we have seen with other births. Caretakers use incubators to help when the mother is too tired and needs to rest. Care at this point is crucial as earlier cases with triplets only saw one of them survive.

 

Fortunately not all news is bad for pandas. Breeding efforts have led to a rise in the number of captive pandas. Now scientists must reintroduce them into the wild.