TORONTO -- Twin panda cubs in Germany have opened their eyes for the first time and can “finally begin to see the world around them,” the Berlin Zoo said in a statement.
In a Facebook post translated from German, the zoo wrote: “Look who's blinking! Our Panda twins opened their eyes for the first time.” The video shows the cubs squinting and slowly moving their paws.
The pair opened their eyes six weeks after their birth, according to a statement released on Oct. 18 and translated from German.
Their mother, a six-year-old giant panda named Meng Meng, gave birth to the pandas on Aug. 31. And since then, the cubs’ eyes and motor functions have been developing.
“We have been referring to them as ‘big one’ and ‘little one,’ but thanks to Meng Meng’s nourishing milk the two siblings are now almost the same size and weight," zoo director Dr. Andreas Knieriem said in the release.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species classifies giant pandas as “vulnerable.”
The zoo claims to have housed Germany’s only giant pandas since 2017 and pays a “loan fee” to China to hold onto its “rare bears.” The money from the fee goes towards conservation work to protect pandas in the wild.
There are only 1,864 adult pandas living in the wild, according to China's fourth panda census relesaed in 2015.
