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Julie Chen: Washington is getting an early holiday gift this year. These are brand-new picutres of the National Zoo's giant panda cub Tai Shan, who made his public debut this morning before the media. The general public will get their first chance to see him next week. Lisa Stevens is the panda curator at the zoo.
Julie Chen: Good morning Lisa.
Lisa Stevens: Good morning, Julie.
Julie Chen: Alright. Tai Shan is four and a half months old. Now how is he doing?
Lisa Stevens:He is actually five months old now and he is doing great. He's showing us each day that he is more and more of a little bear cub.
Julie Chen: So, how, can you discribe his day-to-day activities? What does he eat? What does he do?
Lisa Stevens:Right now he is solely consuming his mother's milk. Each day is very different for us. Some days he sleeps a lot ur. . a lot more than other days. Some days he gets up really early around four or five in the morning and starts playing, like crazy climbing on his mother, climbing on the rocks , then another morning he sleeps in. So it's really variable.
Julie Chen: So when do we introduce bamboo into his diet?
Lisa Stevens: We've already been giving him bamboo and it's very cute to watch him. He rehearses all the adult moves. He slouches back and, um, holds the bamboo in his paws; he pulls the leaves to his mouth; he chews on them and he chews on the stalk. But he is not swallowing yet ; he is not eating yet. And we expect that milestone to occur sometime about a month from now.
Julie Chen: OK, so zoo officials are happy with the progress that he is making, right?
Lisa Stevens: He is doing just perfectly. From the data that we have, he is right on target, he actually may be a little bit heavier for his age.
Julie Chen: OK, now when does the public get to see him upclose? And, you know, in person in panda. How do the tickets work?
Lisa Stevens: He is going to make his public debut on December 8th and we have a ticketing system which right now is booked up and basically at this point we are only offering him for two hours a day to the general public and as he adjusts and Meixiang adjusts to the schedule, we will try and expand those hours as soon as we can.
Julie Chen: OK, so right now don't bother getting tickets because they've been sold out.
Lisa Stevens: The tickets are not available right now. Certainly, check our website we have daily updates on Tai Shan and how he is doing. And there would be updates posted as soon as we can on when more tickets are available.
Julie Chen: Now, how long is Tai Shan going to be after National Zoo before he has to go back to China?
Lisa Stevens: Tai Shan, according to the loan agreement returns to China when he is two years old. He is part of a major breeding program to maintain a healthy populaion of this endangered species in the captivity. And so at two years of age, decisions will be made on where he should go to benefit the breeding population.
Julie Chen: Well, he looks beautiful. He is growing nicely,seems like yesterday we will call him a "butter stick". Lisa Stevens, thanks so much.
Lisa Stevens: You are welcome.
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