TWO RED panda cubs which were abandoned by their mother at birth are thriving at a north China zoo thanks to milk and tender loving care from an unlikely wet nurse – a dog.
The baby pandas were born at Taiyuan zoo in Shanxi province on June 25th, zoo worker Ha Guojiang told the Xinhua news agency.
Their mother, the first lesser panda bred at the zoo, was taken in from a nature reserve at the end of April. “No one knew she was pregnant. Her plump body and bushy hair disguised her protruding belly until the babies were born,” said Ha.
After the panda gave birth in its pen, in broad daylight and in front of a large crowd of visitors, it abruptly turned its back on the babies and refused to nurse them, he said.
“We hurriedly went about finding a wet nurse for them,” said Ha.
The canine wet nurse belonged to a farmer from a nearby suburb and was selected from two other candidates that had recently given birth.
The dog is now raising the two panda cubs like its own pups, sometimes even refusing to feed its own pup, said Ha.
“It’s good-natured and has sufficient milk. The baby bears seem to like it, too,” said Ha.
The cubs are three-weeks-old, have yet to open their eyes and have doubled in length to 20 centimetres, Xinhua reported.
Native to the Himalayas, red pandas look more like raccoons than pandas, are much smaller than their better-known giant panda cousins and have long bushy tails.
There are believed to be fewer than 2,500 adult red pandas in the world and they are a protected species in China.