Some happy news to close out Friday: a baby giant panda cub was born on Thursday in the Pairi Daiza wildlife in Belgium, and his birth is being called a "true miracle." The cub, a boy, has not been named yet and is the son of Hao Hao, a panda who has lived in Belgium since 2014. Like all newborn pandas, this cub is about the size of a stick of butter.
Video of the proud mom carrying around her son was released to the media:
While mother and son are doing well, they're not entirely out of the woods just yet. Newborn pandas are at risk of being crushed accidentally by their parents or die of another cause.
There are only about 1,800 pandas in the world, and of those, 300 live in zoos. Pandas are extremely difficult to breed in captivity, and this is only the third panda to be born in Europe in the past two decades.
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