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Summary Vienna's zoo throws a birthday party for its panda male Hu Fu.
Panda male Fu Hu, or Lucky Tiger in Mandarin, the darling among visitors of Vienna´s Schönbrunn Zoo, celebrated his first birthday on Tuesday.At a special party thrown by the Vienna Zoo for the occasion the black and white cuddly cub who already weighs 22 kilograms and his mother, Yang Yang, were given wrapped birthday presents consisting of sweet potatoes, carrots and bamboo, a pandas favourite foods -- by their keepers.Several hundred visitors attended the event. Fu Hus birth on August 23, 2010 was a zoological sensation. He and his brother Fu Long, who was born three years earlier, are the only two pandas to have been naturally conceived and reared in a European zoo. More than 25,000 people took part in the internet voting to choose his name.Fu Hu spent the first months of his life in the breeding box with his mother Yang Yang. In January 2011 he made his first public appearance when he took his first uncertain steps in the indoor enclosure. As he has become bolder and more curious with age, visitors can now often watch him playing with his mother Yang Yang or climbing a tree in the zoos Panda complex.Fu Hu was born 127 days after mother Yang Yang mated with male Long Hui, weighing in at just 100 grams at birth.His parents were transferred from China to Schoennbrunn zoo in 2003 and are on loan to Austria for 10 years.Giant pandas, one of the worlds rarest and most endangered species, live in the wild only in China and are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.Females typically ovulate just once a year for a few days. Around 40 percent of baby pandas do not live beyond a year. Fu Hus brother Fu Long, who now lives in China, was also born on August 23rd, but in 2007. Visitors of Viennas zoo could sign a birthday card for him too which the zoo will send to his new home.
