Sharjah24 – Reuters: Xiao Qi Ji, the giant panda at Washington D.C.'s National Zoo, turned one on Saturday (August 21). The zoo celebrated the milestone with a fruitsicle cake that Xiao Qi Ji shared with his mother, Mei Xiang. As cameras rolled, both pandas dug into their icy cake, an ideal treat in hot and humid August weather in the U.S. capital.

Mei Xiang's last cub, Bei Bei, left for China in 2019 as part of a breeding program that is key to efforts to reintroduce pandas into the wild.

Pandas have been reclassified from "endangered" to "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, thanks to reforestation to expand habitats in which the species can survive. There are an estimated 1,800 giant pandas in the wild.