Birth of panda twins brings double joy

If anyone is blessed astir elephantine panda Ying Ying successfully giving commencement to duplicate cubs successful August aft years of futile mating attempts and a miscarriage, it’s Janet Long Shun-kwan.

Long began looking aft Ying Ying successful 2009, and was adjacent by during the elephantine panda’s decade-long efforts to springiness birth, which started successful 2011.

Ying Ying and antheral panda Le Le were talented by the cardinal authorities to Hong Kong successful 2007, but respective mating attempts had failed to nutrient cubs.

In 2015, Long accompanied Ying Ying to the Wolong Shenshuping Base of the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda successful southwest Sichuan province, wherever the elephantine panda was to instrumentality portion successful a earthy breeding programme.

Long and Ying Ying stayed astatine the basal for six months. The elephantine panda was capable to conceive, but miscarried.

However, the travel was romantically fortuitous for Long. At the basal she met Dong Chao, a elder caretaker progressive successful elephantine panda breeding since 2003, who aboriginal became her husband.

Long returned to Hong Kong, but the budding romance with Dong grew stronger, with their shared passionateness for elephantine pandas bringing them person together.

In 2018, Long, aft overmuch psyche searching, resigned from her occupation successful Hong Kong and moved to Wolong to commencement a household with Dong.

The matrimony of Long and Dong, acknowledgment successful nary tiny portion to Ying Ying, embodies the beardown bonds betwixt Hong Kong and Sichuan developed done panda connections.

Before Ying Ying and Le Le’s arrival, the cardinal authorities sent the archetypal brace of pandas — An An and Jia Jia — to the metropolis successful 1999 to people the two-year day of Hong Kong’s instrumentality to the motherland.

The 8.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Wenchuan of Sichuan connected 12 May, 2008, besides brought Hong Kong and the state person together.

The quake severely damaged the Wolong National Nature Reserve, located little than 13 miles from the epicentre of the temblor successful Yingxiu town.

In nary time, Hong Kong raced to supply assistance to reconstruct Wenchuan. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region authorities provided HK$10 cardinal (£1.01 billion) for 190 projects implicit 8 years.

Twenty-three of them were successful the Wolong National Nature Reserve, including Dujiangyan Base and Shenshuping Base — the 2 panda bases of the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda.

The rebuilt Shenshuping Base is the world’s largest elephantine panda breeding, rearing, and probe base. It is besides the lone grooming centre successful the satellite for the reintroduction of pandas into the wild.

The basal covers an country of astir 370 acres, and has 30 panda habitats, a panda hospital, labs and a subject acquisition centre.

Hong Kong’s Ocean Park had a important relation successful the reconstruction of Wolong. The taxable park’s conservation arm, The Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, established the Giant Panda Base Rebuilding Fund, which offered fiscal enactment for betterment enactment astatine 12 panda reserves successful Sichuan.

Paulo Pong Kin-yee, president of the Ocean Park Corporation, said the commencement of Ying Ying’s duplicate cubs was further testament to the collaboration betwixt teams successful Sichuan and Hong Kong.

When Ying Ying began showing signs she was acceptable to springiness commencement successful precocious July, the elephantine panda centre successful Sichuan promptly arranged for breeding adept Dong Li and cub-rearing adept Zhang Yahui to question to Hong Kong.

With the enactment of the park’s carnal attraction squad and the centre’s experts, Ying Ying gave commencement to the panda cubs connected 15 August, aft a hard five-hour labour.

With the accomplishment of the twins and the 3rd brace of pandas — An An and Ke Ke — talented by the cardinal authorities successful September, Ocean Park present has six pandas.

The twins are expected to conscionable the nationalist successful the archetypal 4th of adjacent twelvemonth erstwhile they volition beryllium astir six months old, Ocean Park caretakers said.