UPDATE: This article was updated with details about the new pandas arriving in Hong Kong from Mainland China.
Visitors to Ocean Park Hong Kong will get to see four new pandas by early 2025. Authorities plan to unveil the first two pandas — which are gifted to the city by Mainland China — by the end of 2024. Park visitors can see the second pair of pandas, which are the first twin cubs born in Hong Kong, by early 2025.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Chief Executive John Lee said that that pair of pandas will arrive in Hong Kong at the end of September. “The pair of pandas gifted to Hong Kong will arrive on September 26. On Thursday morning, there will be a welcome ceremony when they arrive at the airport. They will then be sent to Ocean Park for quarantine,” said Lee, adding that the pandas’ isolation period will last 30 days. However, the pair need an additional 30 days to adjust to their new surroundings before they can be presented to the public.
The Hong Kong leader added that both pandas are 5 years old, and that the male named An An weighs 130 kgs, and the called Ke Ke female weighs 100 kgs. They will be housed on the Sichuan Centre of the Hong Kong Jockey Club at Ocean Park. Lee also said that there will be a naming competition in October to choose new names for the pandas.
When asked last week about when Hongkongers and other visitors to the city can see the panda cubs, Lee said, “We hope that we will be able to meet the two cubs born in Hong Kong as soon as possible. Hopefully, by the end of the year, we will see the two pandas from Beijing, and in the first quarter of 2025, we will meet the two cubs.”
The two cubs were born in mid-August and 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. According to a recent statement from the park, the cubs have developed fur coats with their distinctive black-and-white markings. The female currently weighs 910 grams, and the male 814 grams. Ying Ying, who is also the oldest first-time panda mother on record, is healthy, but her post-partum recovery is slower than younger mothers on account of her age.
Image credits: Hong Kong Ocean Park
