A brief ceremony was held at Seac Pai Van Park in Macao on Sunday to introduce a pair of giant pandas - Kai Kai and Xin Xin - to the public after a monthlong quarantine.

The pandas, aged 7 and 8, were presented by the central government to the Macao Special Administrative Region.

"They are healthy and live in a den that is one of the best outside the Chinese mainland," said Zhang Zhihe, head of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province.

Three keepers from Zhang's base are taking care of the pandas in Macao. They are paying special attention to the pandas' diet, as bamboo in Macao is slightly different from that in Sichuan.

"To ensure the pair will gradually adapt to their new life in Macao, we send bamboo from Chengdu to Guangzhou each week, from where it will be transported to Macao," said Zhang, who participated in the ceremony.

Two pandas were previously sent to Macao as gifts to mark the 10th anniversary of China's resumption of sovereignty. The male is in good condition, but the female died from acute kidney failure and related conditions in last June.

When President Xi Jinping visited Macao in December for celebrations marking the 15th anniversary of its return to China, he promised that two more pandas would be sent.

Additionally, on Saturday afternoon, a 10-day exhibition of panda photos by Zhang Zhihe, and oil paintings by Zhang Qikai, a professor of oil painting at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, opened in Macao.

The exhibition, organized by the Civil and Municipal Affairs Bureau of Macao and the Chengdu base, also features models of panda bones and videos of pandas, which are shown to Macao children to teach them about protecting animals and the environment.

huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/01/2015 page4)