Twin panda cubs at the zoo Such They made their first public appearance.
The male Xiao Xiao and his sister, Lei Lei, were born in the Ueno Zoo in June. On Wednesday they took their first steps before a dedicated audience, who raised their cell phones to record and photograph the brothers as they played together.
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The zoo released a video on Wednesday showing the two cubs sitting in a tree and playing with bamboo, while visitors can be heard saying “Kawai!” (“Lovely”) in the background. Then you see Xiao Xiao step on his sister to climb the tree.
The puppies, which were pink and the size of a hand when they were born, now weigh like a small child and are covered in black and white hair. They like to climb trees and play in the wood chips on the ground, according to the park.
Before their presentation, the twins and their mother were placed in a shared room where they were exposed to radio sounds so that they would get used to the noise and the voices of the visitors.
The zoo has been closed since Tuesday due to the rapid expansion of the variant Omicron of the virus in Japan. The zoo is only open to show the pandas until Friday. Every day there will be 1,080 visitors who won tickets in a lottery.
Visitors in groups of six were allowed into the panda enclosure, where they could stay for one minute. Visiting periods were limited to two hours in the morning.
Pandas live mainly in the bamboo-covered mountains in the area of Sichuan, in China.
For decades, China has loaned animals in what is known as “panda diplomacy”. All pandas, including those born abroad, must be returned to China at some point.
It is planned that the older sister of the twins, Xiang Xiang, born at Ueno Zoo in 2017, will return to China in June.
Some 1,800 pandas live in freedom in China, and about 500 in captivity in zoos and reserves, most of them inside China.
