Twin joy as Tokyo panda gives birth to cubs

TOKYO: A panda at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo gave birth to twins on Wednesday, weeks after news of Shin Shin’s pregnancy sent stocks in nearby restaurants soaring.

They were born in the early hours of Wednesday, the zoo said in a statement, adding that it had not yet confirmed the sex of the pair.

Zoo director Yutaka Fukuda said the twin birth was a first for the Ueno facility. “When I heard the news that the second baby was born, I couldn’t help but whoop,” he told reporters.

One of the cubs, weighing in at 124 grams, was placed in an incubator, zoo spokesperson Naoya Ohashi said in a press conference later.

The mother panda “is in good health, and carefully looking after” the other baby, he added.

When pandas have twins, they usually only raise one, “so we will be making sure the mother panda will breastfeed one while we keep the other in the incubator,” Ohashi said.

Zookeepers will be swapping the babies so that both cubs experience natural feeding, he added.

Mother Shin Shin sparked a rally in stocks of eateries near the zoo earlier this month when her suspected pregnancy was announced, with investors anticipating a visitor boom to the area after the delivery.

Shares in one Chinese restaurant nearby spiked nearly 30 per cent on the pregnancy and was up around 6.4pc in early trade on Wednesday.

And even the government weighed in, with spokesperson Katsunobu Kato calling the birth of the cubs “cheerful news” and inviting “all of Japan to watch over them”.

Zookeepers had been on alert for a possible pregnancy after Shin and partner Ri Ri mated in early March.

The pair are also parents of a female panda, Xiang Xiang, who was born in June 2017 and became a massive draw for the zoo.

She was scheduled to be repatriated to China two years after her birth, but Japanese officials negotiated to extend her stay until the end of this year.