National Zoo welcomes baby panda

The National Zoo’s female giant panda gave birth to a cub Sunday night, stunning and delighting zoo officials and sparking a new wave of panda mania in Washington seven years after the zoo’s only other cub was born in 2005.

The new cub was born at 10:46 p.m. to Mei Xiang, the zoo said, and curator Becky Malinsky happened to be watching the 24-hour-a-day panda camera feed and heard the first squealing of the newborn.

“I got a call ... a little after 10:45” from a senior curator saying “the behavior watcher just saw a birth,” said Don Moore, associate director for animal care sciences. “I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s not April Fool’s yet, so I’m going back to bed. ’ She said, ‘No, no, really. There’s been a panda. Congratulations.’ ”

“I was not believing it,” Moore said Monday. “We gave this a very low percentage. We were prepared for another disappointment.... We bucked the odds ... and we’ve got a baby on the ground.”

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