Giant pandas presented in their new home

Two three-year-old giant pandas were on display in their new French home for the first time on Tuesday, having arrived from Chengdu, China at the weekend.The black-and-white bears have four weeks to settle into their new surroundings at Beauval Zoo in central France before going on public display from February 11.They have settled in very well tonight, all is going really well, said Stephanie Neuer, a spokesperson for the zoo.Female panda Huan Huan (Happy One) and her male companion Yuan Zi (Round Boy), are expected to stay in France for about a decade, under a joint conservation and research programme.The two animals were bred in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chinas south-western Sichuan province.Our Chinese colleagues are helping us, we are hoping they might reproduce. We will also look at whether they can stay longer with us, said Neuer.Beauval zoo veterinary surgeon Eric Bairrau-Ruivo said they were settling very well.The pandas spent more than a month at a special quarantine in China to prepare them for their adventure abroad.China has been sending pandas abroad in gestures of goodwill since the 1950s in what has come to be known as panda diplomacy.The giant panda is seen as having come back from the brink of extinction, but in the wild, remains under threat from logging, agriculture and rapid urbanisation.