The most recent additions to Hong Kong’s panda family will make their public debut on December 8, a little over two months after they first arrived in the city from Mainland China. The pair named Keke and An An were gifted to the SAR from Beijing in July this year, and have been undergoing quarantine and acclimatising to their new surroundings since they came to Hong Kong at the end of September and are now ready to be unveiled to visitors to the park.
The five-year-old female and male giant pandas have been getting used to eating bamboo sourced from Guangdong and understanding commands in Cantonese, Mandarin, and English during training sessions at Ocean Park. They will also get new names after the results of a naming competition that received 22,600 entries are announced. Visitors can see them at the Club Sichuan Treasures enclosure at the park.
Last month, the twin panda cubs who were born in August 2024 had their 100-day celebration marked with a special feeding ceremony, which was live-streamed to park visitors at Whiskers Theatre. The cubs — a male and a female — will most likely make their first appearance to visitors in early 2025 when they are six months old. The cubs are the offspring of Ying Ying and Le Le, Ocean Park’s 19-year-old resident pandas who both arrived in the city in 2007. Their birth made Ying Ying the oldest first-time panda mother on record.
The arrival of four new pandas in Hong Kong is being commemorated with the upcoming Panda Go! Fest HK, during which 2,500 panda sculptures will go on display at four different locations across Hong Kong from December 7-26, 2024. The pandas will be on view at Avenue Of Stars, Ngong Ping 360, Ocean Park Hong Kong, and Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park.
Image credits: Ocean Park Hong Kong
