Malaysia-returned panda cub meets visitors in Sichuan

Nuan Nuan, a more than two-year-old female panda, met the public for the first time in the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province Thursday after her month-long quarantine was over.

Her parents Fu Wa and Feng Yi are pandas from the center. Born on the same day — August 23, 2006, they were loaned to the Malaysian National Zoo in 2014.

On Aug 18 the next year, they gave birth to Nuan Nuan, who returned to the center on November 15, 2017.

Weighing 86 kilograms, Nuan Nuan is in good health. She is fond of carrots but is not interested in bamboo shoots, which are other pandas' favorite, according to center executive director Zhang Hemin.

With 270 captive pandas, his center boasts the largest captive panda population in the world. It has established long-term partnerships with 15 zoos in 13 countries.

Twelve overseas-born panda cubs have returned to the center in line with an agreement between China and foreign parties keeping Chinese pandas that any panda cub born to Chinese pandas overseas must return to China when it is two years old, Zhang said.