Beijing ? Eight pandas reached Beijing safely Saturday after a long journey from their damaged reserve near the epicenter of the recent earthquake in China.

The pandas will spend the next six months at the Beijing Zoo on a special Olympics visit that was planned long before the quake.

They have been closely watched because they seemed nervous after the earthquake, sometimes eating and sleeping less. But the pandas appeared lively after they were moved into their exhibit space at the Beijing Zoo on Saturday evening, even putting their paws on the glass separating them from the media and the public.

“I’m not sure about the mental state of the pandas right now,” Ye Mingxia of the Beijing Zoo told The Associated Press earlier this week. “We will have to carefully observe them after they arrive.”