I saw Ya Yun 雅韵 and her 2024-born cub together in the Moonlight Nursery on the first day of my visit. They were living next door to the cub kindergarten. Her cub has now been announced as a male called Zhi Lu 徵路. I didn’t end up seeing a lot of Ya Yun herself, she was quite awkwardly tucked in the bushes eating her bamboo for most of the time, so I only could see around half of her body (mostly paws!). She did get up to give some attention to Zhi Lu at one point, but he was mostly allowed his independence to roam around the yard by himself, super cute^

Ya Yun was born in 2016, making her 8.5 years old. Given that my first visit to Chengdu Panda Base was in November 2016, and her sign says that as a cub she liked to chase her keepers – there’s a very strong chance that I saw her as a cub because I saw plenty of cubs chasing keepers on my visit!