San Diego Zoo Blogs

Yun Zi continues to grow and thrive. In my previous post (see New Kids on the Block), I mentioned that the pandas receive small amounts of yam and carrot and apple as tasty treats. Yun Zi has not started eating apples; he likes the smell of them and will mouth them, as he does other plant material, but he lets them fall out of his mouth. The fact that he likes the smell has been useful. We try to coax him to move between areas, and smelling a piece of apple sometimes stimulates his interest in moving forward. Interestingly, carrots and yams don’t get the same response!
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On October 3, 2009, Msholo, an African elephant from the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida, arrived to join the current herd at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. Msholo is one of the 11 elephants rescued from a scheduled cull in Africa’s Swaziland in 2003. He came from the Hlane Game Reserve in Swaziland; other elephants from that same reserve now living here at the Wild Animal Park are Swazi, Umoya, and Umngani.
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As you know by now (read posts New York Roommates and Packing for a Porcupine’s Flight), we have spent the week traveling around New York. We have been visiting with media and giving talks to different groups about polar bears and what is going on at the San Diego Zoo’s Conrad Prebys Polar Bear Plunge.
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Living with a porcupine and two tortoises in a hotel room in Manhattan is indeed as unique as it sounds, if for no other reason than everyone seems to be on a different sleep schedule! (Read Rick’s previous post, Packing for a Porcupine’s Flight.) Sure, there is plenty of “city noise” that comes through the closed windows, but honestly I can sleep through most of that, sirens, honking, and all. However, in-the-room noise is another story…
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Many of the San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cam viewers have asked about Gao Gao, our adult male panda and father of our latest cutie, Yun Zi. Although he is not currently on exhibit, I’m happy to report that he’s doing very well! He and his daughter Su Lin usually rotate every few weeks between the main viewing exhibit and the off-exhibit enclosure). But Su Lin is currently undergoing hearing studies by our research team, and to move her from the off-exhibit enclosure to the soundproof room where the study is done every morning would take away so much from the study itself. So for right now, it’s more practical for bears and keepers to keep everyone where they are at this time.
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We’ve issued challenges to our “green” families and asked them to share their experiences. Challenge #3: A Green Valentine’s Day? Vote online for the family that got the most creative with this task!

We may have a leaky house, but the Ballentines like to cook. We are also facing a nice blizzard type of storm here in the next 24 to 36 hours, so it’s lucky that today was the first day I could pick up some local grub from a market co-op I discovered in January!
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The opening of the San Diego Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey in May of last year brought many interesting animals into the spotlight. The elephants got a large exhibit to explore, while three California condors moved into their new digs, and that doesn’t include the myriad of other mammals, insects, and reptiles that found themselves transported into the various Pleistocene-themed exhibits. One of my favorite animals to work with moved into Elephant Odyssey because he resembles a long-legged eagle known as the Dagget’s eagle that used to live in Southern California thousands of years ago: the secretary bird.
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At the start of 2010, we asked families across the country to see if they could reduce their own carbon footprint (see post, Families Take the Challenge to Go Green!). They agreed to post blog entries regularly, sharing their challenges, ideas, and victories. The San Diego Zoo gives them a specific challenge to address every two weeks.
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We’ve issued challenges to our “green” families and asked them to share their experiences. Challenge #2: Staying Warm for Winter. Vote online for the family that met the challenge!

“Give a kid a hammer and everything gets nailed down,” or “Give a politician a screwdriver and everything gets screwed up.” Such analogies could be applied to me with our new energy Thermal Leak Detector, Power Cost Monitor, and Shower Regulator, provided as part of the Green Family Challenge kit. With the cold snow blowing through the Windy City of Chicago, you bet I am eager to find ways to keep us warmer for cheaper. Not only is it the heart of a Midwest winter, we are also first-time homeowners, so these exercises and devices are great tools for us to find out what is working and what is not.
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For more than a decade, one of the most memorable and recognizable faces on our Big Cat Trail has been an amazing black jaguar named Orson. Practically a San Diego Zoo mascot, Orson is known and loved by not only our Zoo community but also by anyone who has had the privilege to gaze upon this majestic animal. Many of our Zoo members include a visit with Orson in his Big Cat Trail exhibit as part of their regular route through the Zoo. Well, for many of our members, their routes are about to change!
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