Giant panda gives birth to twin cubs at Madrid Zoo
The world's panda population got a boost on Monday, when twin cubs were born at the Madrid Zoo.
Their parents are Hua Zuiba and Bing Xing, pandas on loan from China who have mated before. The tiny, hairless cubs are bonding with their mother Hua Zuiba, and it will be a bit of time before the zoo finds out details about them, like their sex and weight. Two experts from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding flew to Madrid form China to help assist with the births.
It's believed there are about 1,800 pandas living in the wild in China, in addition to roughly 500 in zoos. Thanks to worldwide conservation efforts, pandas are now considered "vulnerable," rather than endangered.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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