WASHINGTON (AP) - The giant panda cub born a week ago at the National Zoo in Washington died Sunday morning, saddening zoo officials and visitors who had heralded its unexpected arrival.
The 4-ounce cub, about the size of a stick of butter, showed no obvious signs of distress and made its final recorded noise shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday, zoo officials said at a news conference.
The cub's mother, Mei Xiang, then made an unusual honking sound at 9:17 a.m. that her keepers interpreted as a distress call, and she moved away from where she had been nesting with the cub. About an hour later, one keeper distracted her with honey water while another used an instrument similar to a lacrosse stick to pick up the cub.
The cub, whose gender could not be determined externally, was not breathing and its heart had stopped. A veterinarian attempted CPR before it was pronounced dead at 10:28 a.m.
"This is devastating for all of us here," National Zoo director Dennis Kelly said at a news conference.
"It's hard to describe how much passion and energy and thought and care has gone into this."
Mei Xiang's first cub, Tai Shan, born in 2005, enjoyed enormous popularity before he was returned to China in 2010.
The new cub, born Sept. 16, had been a surprise at the zoo. Fourteen-year-old Mei Xiang had five failed pregnancies before giving birth.
Panda cubs are especially delicate and vulnerable to infection and other illness. The first weeks of life are critical for the cubs as mothers have to make sure they stay warm and get enough to eat.
Panda mothers are about 1,000 times heavier than their cubs, and sometimes they accidentally crush them. On any given day in the first two weeks of life, cubs have a mortality rate of 17 to 18 percent, zoo officials said.
A necropsy was being conducted to determine the cause of death, and preliminary findings were expected Monday, said Suzan Murray, the zoo's chief veterinarian. The cub showed no external signs of trauma, she said.