Day-Old Panda Had Stillborn Twin, Zoo Says

National Zoo officials expressed delight with the progress of a day-old, kicking and squealing giant panda cub Wednesday even as they disclosed that mother Ling-Ling had also given birth to a second, stillborn offspring.

“The news is good. We have an excellent maternal bond, and as near as we can tell we’ve got a healthy baby,” Benjamin Beck, the zoo’s general curator, said at a news conference.

Ling-Ling nursed the surviving cub cradled inside one of her paws for most of its first day of life. After one brief trip outside the nest, she scooped her five-inch offspring up in her mouth late Wednesday morning and went to a neighboring room, apparently to feed.

‘Going as Predicted’

“It’s an excellent sign, delightful,” Beck said. “We’re comforted by the fact that things are going as predicted.”

The four-ounce cub, born Tuesday morning, could become the first giant panda cub to survive captive birth in the United States.

The Panda House was closed to give the mother privacy, and officials observed the baby’s progress via closed-circuit TV. They do not plan to remove the body of the stillborn cub or enter the cage unless problems develop with the surviving cub.