Panda Couple Give Birth to Female Cub

/Courtesy of Everland

A baby giant panda has been born in Korea for the first time.

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The only giant panda couple in the country, Aibao and Lebao, gave birth to a female cub on Monday at amusement park Everland's zoo.

The highly endangered animals, which are notoriously reluctant to mate, were sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping in March 2016 as a symbol of friendship between Korea and China. 

The cub measured 16.5 cm and weighed 197 g when it was born around 9:50 p.m. Monday, an hour and a half after labor began.

Pandas can only conceive during a period of ovulation that lasts less than three days once a year between March and April.

Pandas are normally solitary creatures and pair up only during the breeding season, which brings down their chances of successful natural mating process. They also undergo so-called "delayed implantation", meaning it takes about three months for a fertilized egg to implant in the uterine wall. This makes it hard to detect pregnancy.

Only two baby pandas have been born outside China this year, in Taiwan and the Netherlands.

For the successful gestation of a baby panda, Everland launched a taskforce to analyze data on changes in their pandas' hormone levels. They then picked the best day for their mating and succeeded in encouraging a natural mating process in late March.

The taskforce were able to confirm the pregnancy early on by watching how much the mother ate and whether her behavior changed. The pregnancy lasted four months.

Everland is not going to display the baby panda to the public for the time being.

Giant panda Lebao eats at Everland in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday. /Newsis

The pandas were not a gift but are on a 15-year loan. Everland is paying US$1 million to China every year as a contribution to the panda conservation fund and will be charged an one-off payment of $500,000 for the research on the cub.

Though it was born in Korea, the panda cub will have to be sent to China in four or five years.

Giant pandas are designated as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Native to south central China, they now live in captivity in 20 countries around the world. They were originally carnivores like other bears but, for reasons that are not fully understood, weaned themselves off meat and now only eat bamboo shoots, which make them so lethargic and reluctant to mate.