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Where have we seen this before?
Oh right. Former NBA player Yao Ming lifts up a giant panda cub at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, Sichuan province, January 11, 2012. Yao came to the research base after attending the launch ceremony of Panda Valley protected area, where the first batch of giant pandas has been resettled from captivity for wildlife training, local media reported.  REUTERS/China Daily

Cute overload!
Day-old white lion cubs lie next to their mother Sumba in their enclosure at Belgrade’s Zoo December 21, 2011.(Photo: Ivan Milutinovic/Reuters)

Photos of the day
A nine day old mona monkey is presented by its keeper. Dec. 19, 2011 at the zoo in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. In the wild, the guenons live mainly in western African forests. (Jens Wolf/AFP/Getty Images)

Odd Christmas photo of the day
Santa Claus feeds a Humboldt penguin at Marineland aquatic park in Antibes, south-eastern France, December 13, 2011. (Photo: Eric Gaillard/Reuters)

Chinese zoo at a loss what to do when a deer and a ram fall in love
Staff at a wildlife park in southwest China have turned to the country’s half a billion web users for advice after a male sheep and a female deer began mating — and soon became inseparable.

A posting on the park’s microblog posed the question: “What do you do when a ram falls in love with a deer?” It asked readers whether they agreed it would be “unethical” to let the unusual pairing continue.

“They do not want to be separated but it is unethical to let them go on,” said the posting, addressed to users of China’s hugely popular weibos — microblogging services similar to Twitter that have taken the country by storm.

Cute animal photo of the day
Orangutan mother Daisy holds her baby Dodi on his second birthday, Nov. 24, 2011 at the zoo in Dresden, Germany. (Photo: Arno Burgi/AFP/Getty Images)

Cute animal photo of the day
A young plains zebra walks behind its mother Ela on November 23, 2011 at the zoo in Hanover, Germany. (Holger Hollemann/AFP/Getty Images)

Gay penguin separation means survival of the species: zoo keepers
Splitting up a pair of potentially homosexual African penguins and pairing them with females might sound anti-gay, but keepers at the Toronto Zoo insist they are simply trying to preserve the species.

Pedro, 10, and Buddy, 20, were brought to the Toronto Zoo this year from Pittsburgh’s National Aviary to “pair-bond” with a couple of eligible females. Instead, the pair bonded with each other. Zookeepers now report seeing the pair snuggling, calling to each other and displaying courtship behaviour.

This week, the Toronto Zoo says it will be forced isolate the pair.

“The two girls have been following them; we just have to get the boys interested in looking at them,” said Tom Mason, curator of birds and invertebrates at the Toronto Zoo.

With Pedro and Buddy’s species on the cusp of extinction, Mr. Mason insists that the Toronto Zoo cannot afford to let a season go by without passing on the pair’s genes. “If [Pedro and Buddy] weren’t genetically important, then we’d let them do their thing,” Mr. Mason said. (Photo: Ken Ardill/Toronto Zoo)

Cute Animal of the Day
A zookeeper feeds a leopard kitten in the wildlife rescue center at the Phnom Tamao zoo, Cambodia, Nov. 2, 2011. (Samrang Pring/Reuters)

Cute Animal Photo of the Day
A polar bear shakes off water from its body at the St-Felicien Wildlife Zoo in St-Felicien, Quebec. According to Environment Canada, Canada is home to around 15,000 of the estimated 20,000 polar bear population. (Mathieu Belanger/Reuters)

Graphic: The Toronto Zoo elephants’ unforgettable journey
Toronto city council voted last week to send African elephants Thika, Toka and Iringa to a sanctuary in San Andreas, Calif., where they will roam 80 acres of grassland and, if so inclined, dip their feet in a jacuzzi for ailing joints. Now comes the hard part: moving three massive beasts thousands of kilometres southwest.

Two cubs die as mother polar bear turns on her three newborns
Three new polar bears were found in the polar bear enclosure of the Toronto Zoo Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night, one was dead and two others were clinging to life in the zoo’s intensive care unit.

Zoo staff are working “valiantly” to save the two cubs, wrote the zoo in a prepared release. “They will continue to be hand-raised and we are hopeful that they will both get stronger but they are far from being out of the woods at this time.”

Born prematurely, the three tiny cubs were rejected by their 10-year-old mother Aurora. Polar bears are known to reject — and eat — their cubs if they appear weak at birth.

By Thursday night, a second cub had died. If the third survives, it will need to be hand-raised by zookeepers for the next 12 months, at which point they will likely be too large to interact with humans. (Photo: Toronto Zoo/Handout)

Toronto Zoo struggles to save rejected polar bear cubs
Three new polar bears were found in the polar bear enclosure of the Toronto Zoo Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night, one was dead and two others were clinging to life in the zoo’s intensive care unit.

Zoo staff are working “valiantly” to save two cubs, wrote the zoo in a prepared release. “They will continue to be hand-raised and we are hopeful that they will both get stronger but they are far from being out of the woods at this time.”

Born prematurely, the three tiny cubs were rejected by their 10-year-old mother Aurora. Polar bears are known to reject — and eat — their cubs if they appear weak at birth. (Photo: Tyler Anderson/National Post)

Cute Overload of the Day
Female Amur tiger Iris and her three 7-week-old cubs are pictured in the Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, September 29, 2011. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Photos of the day
A two week old lion cub yawns during his first outdoor walk at the city zoo in the southern Russian city of Stavropol, September 14, 2011. (Danil Semyonov/AFP/Getty Images)