A BBC Earth video recently posted on YouTube (which can be viewed at the top of the article) showcases how crafty zookeepers are able to keep twin newborn pandas alive by tricking the new panda mom into thinking she only has one cub.
Narrated by David Attenborough, the video reveals multiple cub births in pandas are extremely common. Unfortunately, it is also just as common for only one of the panda cubs to make it. According to the video, new panda moms almost always favor one cub and abandon any other cubs she gave birth to.
Experts believe this is a decision the new mother makes because she does not feel as though she supplies enough milk to support multiple cubs. Rather than taking the risk of losing both babies by trying to feed and support them both, the mother favors one while the other starves to death.
Thanks to a technique developed by zookeepers, that is effective almost 100 percent of the time, both cubs in multiple cub births almost always survive when they are born in captivity. While pandas are technically no longer an endangered species, they are still at risk. This technique is crucial in helping to preserve the species.
The video reveals that when the technique is successful as it has been during the first 18-days that new mother Lee Lee’s cubs have been in this world, the mother doesn’t even realize she has more than one baby.
The technique involves a great deal of patience on the zookeeper’s part and a great deal of trust on the new mother panda’s part. The zookeeper will distract the mother – usually with a bowl of honey water – while slipping the young cub from the mother’s arm. As demonstrated in the video, it is a technique that takes a bit of effort as the new mother isn’t always willing to part with her cub.
Once the cub is removed from the mother, the zookeeper takes it to an incubator where it is given formula while the other cub is removed from the incubator and taken back to its mother to have a turn at drinking its mother’s milk.
This technique is a meticulous process that involves swapping the cubs out at least 10 times a day as well as keeping a detailed record of the time each cub spends with their mother.
While time consuming, this technique is the best chance the twin panda cubs have at surviving.
