A Quiet Morning
Posted at 3:44 pm January 24, 2007 by Ellie RosenbaumIt’s a bit more exciting to get down to the Giant Panda Research Station in the morning, now that Bai Yun and Su Lin have the ability to freely travel the entire viewing area. After lots of free-wheeling activity on Monday, Su Lin was a bit more tentative on Tuesday, following her mother and seeking out her company, soliciting Bai’s attention more than we’ve seen recently – but that’s just fine! As we saw with Bai Yun’s first two offspring, Hua Mei and Mei Sheng, weaning and separation are gradual processes, and each cub is different. It has and continues to be the plan to allow this to happen naturally with each cub; Bai Yun ultimately has decided when their together time is over and we’re looking for those behavioral indicators again.
Today Bai Yun was eating steadily, first on the left and then on the right side. And Su Lin?? She spent the entire morning in the ” new,” right-hand area, napping comfortably in a tree quite close to the visitors. Does this mean that is where she prefers to be? For this morning, absolutely – although she’s free to change her mind and move closer to Bai, or alone to the other area, whenever she wishes. Whether eating, sleeping, scratching, mating, playing, or weaning, what the pandas do and when they do it here is up to them. Watching and learning from them is proving to be quite an adventure and we can often only guess what their motivation is. It’s going to get more intriguing as winter moves into spring.
Males Gao Gao and Mei Sheng have settled in to their off-exhibit areas, as our observers have attested, although the presence of another panda so close has definitely caught Mei Sheng’s attention. That’s to be expected; in the wild, sub-adult cubs will seek out other pandas for play and company until they mature and adopt that solitary life at 4 or 5 years of age. Mei Sheng was vocalizing and gravitating toward the adjacent wall. (In true adult fashion, Gao Gao was napping.) That level of interest only lasts so long, of course, before it’s time to eat again, and at last look, Sheng was chomping away.
Ellie Rosenbaum is a panda narrator at the San Diego Zoo.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Scroll to the end to leave a comment. Pinging is not allowed.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Isn’t it possible for Mei Sheng and Su Lin to ” meet” ?
January 24th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Conversation with Mei Sheng #12
Tourist: Hello Mei Sheng.
Mei Sheng: Hello Mr. Tourist.
T: Now what have you here? Looks like a brush.
M: I’m learning Chinese calligraphy.
T: So you’re preparing to go to China, aren’t you?
M: Well, it’s more than that.
T: Now what’s that?
M: Daddy-O Gao Gao is teaching me to write poems to beautiful lady friends.
T: Oh?
M: Well, at first he tried to teach me handstands.
T: Now that’s nice.
M: Only since I’m not the handstand type, he’s teaching me poetry.
T: Uh huh.
M: And I will seal it with my scent and send her my digital photo.
T: So you’ll be a real romantic, huh?
M: Huh? Was that what Daddy-O was trying to teach me?
T: So what did you think?
M: I thought I was soliciting contestants for my beauty pageants.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Karen #1,
Actually, that may happen down the road when Su Lin is well settled in. In the meantime, we are considering the possibility of allowing Gao Gao and Mei Sheng to have some fun together, starting with introductions across a howdy gate in the near future. When that is around the corner I will let you know more.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I also was wondering if Su Lin and Mei Sheng could be put together for awhile. Su has never really played at fighting with her mom, so it would seem to be to her advantage to have a chance to play with another young panda.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
What was Bai Yun’s reaction, if any, to the scent of Mei Sheng in the right hand exhibit. Mei Sheng was in that exhibit for the previous week (last week actually). Did Bai recognize her son? Has she done any scent marking? Has Su done any scent marking in the ” boys” exhibit.
I really do hope Bai Yun recognized her son. It would be nice to let Su and Mei see each other through a ” howdy gate” .
January 24th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
It is a really exciting prospect for Mei Sheng and Su Lin to get to interact. Will either of them have the chance to interact with other sub-adult pandas once they get to China? Especially since Mei Sheng will be leaving in a few months. It would be great for him to have some interaction with both GaoGao and Su Lin. He would probably not react the same toward them as he might if he encountered his mother. He would likely have more vivid memories of his time with him. Since he is such as social bear it would be great to see how he reacts to GaoGao. Likewise is would be interesting to see how GaoGao would react to a sub-adult male bear who is obviously not a mating threat. He has shown interest in Bai Yun during her estrus, but has he ever been introduced to her socially at other times? How do they get along as adult bears?
Mei Xiang and Tian Tian have recently been reintroduced socially and have had fun ” playing” through the mesh and in their enclosure. Since Bai Yun is older, I don’t know how she might react in such a social setting.
Does the socialization of the bears prior to the onset of estrus help when estrus is actually on and natural breeding time is critical? If so, how long prior to estrus do you plan to reintroduce Bai Yun and GaoGao.
Would it help Su Lin be even more comfortable in her new ” digs” if she had another sub-adult to interact with after her encounters with her mother end? Not sure if Hua Mei and Mei Sheng had a similar opportunity after he was weaned but before she left for China. It would seem that it might be the only chance they will have to interact with another sub-adult panda and learn how to ” play” or socialize with bears in their own age bracket.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Do Bai Yun and Su Lin have 24/7 access to both areas now? If so, who initates which one they go to first? I noticed this morning that they appear to have started out in the new area. Was that a keepers idea and directed them there, or did Bai Yun just get up this morning and decide that is where they were going? Does there come a point where she doesn’t let/allow her cub to come back with her into the old area? That would definitely be a clue to everyone, including the cub, that closure time had come.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Kristi #5,
Bai Yun did a lot of sniffing around when she was first introduced to the additional space. She gave no indication that she recognized the scents she found there, but if she did recognize them she showed us no sign that it had an unusual impact on her. However, she was curious about the scent there, and she reacted by investigating carefully and scent marking to leave her own calling card behind.
Incidentally, we know from studies we have done in Wolong that scents persist for a long time. The panda can detect the scent left by a urine deposit for about a month after the scent was left, even when the scent is aging in the elements. Scent marks left using the tail gland can elicit a response from a bear as much as six months after the fact. No doubt Bai Yun got a good whiff of both Mei Sheng and Gao Gao this week.
Margaret #7,
The girls are now getting access to the area overnight as well as during the day. I observed on Tuesday that Bai Yun often chose to be far away from her cub…. when Su Lin approached her, Bai Yun would get up and move to the next enclosure. If Su Lin followed again, Bai Yun would move back. This seemed particularly pronounced when Bai Yun was trying to feed, as if she wanted to be left alone to enjoy her bamboo.
January 25th, 2007 at 11:59 am
It is getting really exciting for all these pandas born in the USA!
All this milestone panda cub activity is getting to be like watching three circus rings at once.
I keep switching from seeing Su Lin explore her new territory, to Mei Lan exploring hers, to Tai Shan napping beside his mom while the snow falls and then playing with her, to Su Lin eating and playing with her mother, to Mei Lan crawling on her mom. Whew!
What better way to pass one’s free time during the day than to see these marvelous creatures enjoy life! How blessed we all are that they are being conserved and technology has allowed us such intimate glimpses of their developing lives.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Suzanne’s comments #8, last paragraph.. OK, this weaning stuff still gets to me. Bai moving to another area everytime Sue follows. How big are their brains? Maybe Sue Lin doesn’t feel the rejection like we would. Maybe they just watch Mom move, and follow, until they tire of it or get interested in something else. Maybe they don’t ‘miss’ things like we do. At least, I hope not. It’s still pretty sad. But we do know they get over it and continue on in their life. So it’s our ‘human’ emotions. OK. BUT I’m still sad for Sue (and Tai). =-(
January 25th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Is where Bai Yun positions herself relative to Su Lin one of the signals you watch for?
It sounds like Bai Yun is trying to tell Su Lin to stay in Su Lin’s own space so Bai Yun can eat alone in hers. Is that what you are perceiving? If that is the case, then the weaning process is proceeding very naturally, albeit sped up a bit by giving them access to two enclosures instead of one.
It doesn’t appear so far that keepers have done any ” manipulating” of where either Bai Yun or Su Lin go, and that the choice of where they are and when is totally up to the bears and their natural instincts. Is that correct?
I still marvel that Wolong can separate cubs from mothers at 6 months, and that not have a lasting affect on the cubs. Looking at Mei Lan who is 4.5 months, and just starting to get around on all 4 legs, I can’t conceive of taking her away from her mother yet. Since Wolong socializes these baby cubs by rearing them together in a ” kindergarten” how does that socialization from basically infancy to adolescence correspond to the socialization that Mei Sheng and Su Lin got with their mother? How do they get their socialization with other sub-adult/adolescent pandas? After quarantine and adjustment period at Wolong, are they put in with a group of other young bears? Has Hua Mei had any contact with other sub-adult or adult pandas at Wolong other than attempted matings? Or has she just had contact with her two sets of twin boy cubs for 6 months prior to their being removed for group rearing? How often would sub-adult pandas encounter other sub-adult pandas in the wild? Would they be mostly recently weaned pandas looking for their own territory, or might pre-weaning cubs ever come in contact with each other?
January 25th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Has anyone observed Su Lin nursing in the past few weeks? I just saw Tai Shan nursing until Mei Xiang decided it was over. She sat up, pushed him away, and he went off to eat his bamboo. I have seen him nurse at least 3 times in the past week so I wondered if Su Lin ever nurses anymore or not. A couple of people said they saw her nursing last weekend or Monday on Panda Cam, but all I could make out was Su Lin and Bai Yun playing/wrestling.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Margaret #11,
The way Bai Yun places herself relative to her cub is an indicator to us. Several times she has been seen putting distance between herself and the cub when Bai Yun wants to eat bamboo. Even when Su Lin persists, Bai Yun is with increasing frequency not allowing the cub to eat from the same stash of bamboo as her. She has also been seen engaging in very mild aggression towards the cub when she does try to feed alongside her mother… on Tuesday, this resulted in Bai Yun pinning the cub down as she took back some stolen bamboo. Su Lin cried out, and as soon as her mother got the bamboo she wanted and released the cub, Su Lin shot off and up a tree. Thus, in many ways, Bai Yun is speaking loudly to us.
And no, thus far we haven’t manipulated any doors, or tried to separate them intentionally. We have only given them more space to work with. Personally, I think that thus far this increased space has helped me better decode the messages Bai Yun is sending.
FYI we suspect Su Lin is nursing no more than once per 24 hour period, but there may be days in which she isn’t nursing at all. That was par for the course with her two siblings at about this time too.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Suzanne, thanks for the update. I suspected that these were the cues you were intently watching from Bai Yun.
She is the mother/boss, so the subordinate cub must take ” orders” from their mother, whether they like it or not.
Similar to humans, that we don’t always like what we are told, but ultimately our parents have our best interest at heart. Sometimes tough love is necessary.
In order for a panda mother to get a cub to be totally independent they probably have to exert some aggression to get the message across. Better to do it early, than have a puzzled cub later. Su Lin will learn quick enough that if she wants to eat she must find and eat her own supply of food. I have noticed that Mei Xiang also pushes Tai Shan away, more assertively if necessary, when he tries to take bamboo from her pile. Both cubs will learn quickly that they have been provided with their own food supply a short distance away from their mother so they can eat in peace too.
It will be interesting to watch over the next couple of days where Su Lin chooses to eat. When I checked in yesterday, Bai Yun and Su Lin seemed to be eating at different times and places from each other. They may have had some time close together, but I did not see it.
What do they tend to be choosing to do in the ” new” space now? The cams have been focusing on the trees in the new exhibit, but I have not seen Su Lin in them. My guess is that she was up there before I tuned in and had gotten down and was off to some new adventure when I checked in. I notice that both bears appear to be comfortable eating in either exhibit. Have you noticed a pattern for the timing of when they go in either exhibit?
January 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Is there a technical problem with the time-lapse videos? Yesterday and today they only go until about 8 AM and then cut off. It is unfortunate because there were several key moments in the interactions of Bai Yun and Su Lin, and them doing their own thing in their own space.
Moderator’s note: Yes, we’ve been having some technical difficulties. Please ” bear” with us.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
It seems to me that the dynamics between Bai Yun and Su Lin has been changing daily. It is obvious, though, Bai Yun is running the show.
Most frustrating thing for me is that I don’t know if/when I can visit them during this very special time. I hate it when life interferes with my panda viewing!
January 26th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Another question re: time lapse video. Is it possible for us to slow down the speed? It goes pretty fast and I’m wondering if there’s a way to view it better.
Thanks for any info. and BIG thanks again for the opportunities on the panda web cam.
Aloha,
Noreen.
January 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I want to say Thank You for the ability to see Su Lin and Bai Yun and ‘The Boys’ via the Panda Cams! I also want to say Thank You to the Panda Staff for creating such a marvelous area for the Pandas. I have been flipping back and forth between the San Diego Site and the Atlanta Zoo site. San Diego has created a perfect playground. I have watched with great interest the growing up of little Su Lin. Monday, the 22nd of January, was dificult, because both Mom and Baby seemed more agitated than curious. I was thrilled when I saw the two dining together that evening and again on Tuesday through this evening. I am wondering about how the staff get Su Lin out of her perches during the day and also in the evening. Do you have to ‘call’ her or does she just decide when it’s bedtime? Also, where are Gow Gow and Mei Sheng? Do they still have outdoor access? Can Panda Cams be installed in their area? Another question. Will Bai Yun go into estrus before Su Lin is weaned? If so, will that speed up the weaning process?
January 26th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I am fascinated by the weaning process and appreciate the observations detailed by Ellie, Suzanne, Kay and the Zoo’s wonderful care of ” our” pandas. I check for any news with bated breath. Thanks again.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
A computer virus hit us. Please forgive the lack of communication while our extrordinay IT people helped clear our system. As of Friday mid-day the pandas were doing their own things. Bai came and went as she wished, as did Su Lin. They will let the researchers and keepers know what is appropriate. No one is closing gates, no one is separating them—
It’s all about the bears!! (As it always is/ and has been/ here)
Young children say, ” You’re not the boss of me!!” Here, the pandas, mostly Bai Yun, are the ” boss” of at some times nearly three dozen people here.
It’s all about the bears.
January 27th, 2007 at 7:09 am
Hi Suzanne,
Yesterday morning, Friday, around 6:10 AM, I observed Su Lin nursing while Bai was sitting in the
” hollowed out tree” . This was the first time I’ve seen Mom and Su Lin so close.
Thank you for all the information you supply during this stressful separation time.
Regards,
Rose
January 27th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I have been watching the panda cams this Saturday morning and I see that both Su Lin and Bai Yun found their way to the top of the ” tree trunk” . I know Gao Gao and Mei Sheng like to sleep up there and it looks like Bai and Su thought it would be a good place for a nursing session too. Meanwhile Tai Shan has been chasing Mei Xiang around the enclosure this morning trying to get her to play with him. He is by far the most hyper panda bear I’ve ever seen and I think he keeps his mom in good shape since she managed to pin Tian Tian down when they wrestled the other day. It’s just funny to watch how well behaved Su Lin is and how naughty Tai Shan is.
January 27th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I couldn’t tell who the bears were when I first got on the Panda Cam this morning. Apparently, it was Bai Yun and Su Lin having a play or nursing session on top of the tree trunk. Bai Yun left the trunk and Su Lin is now enjoying the space all to herself. She rolled on her back, and is now lounging on top of it. What a beautiful, fun sight!
January 27th, 2007 at 11:39 am
I’ve just had a wonderful time watching Panda Cam. Bai Yun and Su Lin were cuddling and nuzzling in the hollowed-out tree–with their heads folded in towards each other they looked like a big black and white heart. Then Bai patiently let Su nurse for quite some time, and they cuddled more and had some gentle play-fighting after that. It was so sweet and when Bai left the tree, Su rolled around in it like she was Queen of the Mountain. What a heartwarming sight. Thanks for the great shots, and for all your information during the weaning process–as during every other stage of these precious bears’ lives.
January 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Lots of fun watching Su Lin and Bai Yun at about 9:45 this morning. Bai Yun was asleep in the ” hollowed out tree trunk” – Su Lin climbed up alongside and decided it was nursing time. After some nudging, Su Lin was successful in awakening Bai, and enjoyed nursing for about 17 minutes. Afterwards, there was some fun play time & lots of nuzzling. Very, very, cute to watch.
Great Panda Close Ups!
Thank you,
Rose
January 27th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
The shot of Bai Yun and Su Lin napping together in the top of the tree trunk is priceless. They look so content together. Neither seems to be in any hurry to get away from the other. I hope that these sessions help them both with any ” anxiety” about the separation. At this moment in time, they don’t appear to be wanting to be apart completely yet.
January 27th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
How exciting! I can hardly wait to hear when a possible introduction and contact between Mei Sheng and Gao will take place. And, perhaps in the future, Mei Sheng and Su Lin will have a play session.
January 27th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
To Jean #22 – I too was switching back and forth watching the SDZ and DC bears this morning. I found myself laughing out loud at Tai’s antics with his Mom. I’m convinced he has more ornery in him than all 3 bear cubs born at SDZ combined!! Mei has alot of patience to put up with that youngsters energy! Su Lin is so laid back and independent in comparison.
January 28th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Kudos to the Meerkats this morning! There are wonderful shots of Bai Yun and Su Lin sitting side by side and eating from the same pile of bamboo. Su Lin obviously has learned from mom well on bamboo eating. She is almost a pro now!
February 18th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
I have watched Tai Shan since the day after he was born-visited the San Diego Zoo in Jan 2006 & all we saw was a blur of Su Lin in her tree. Now am watching Mei Lan in Atlanta. Their development seems to be about the same. Our favorite cub is Tai – he is a hellion (is it because he’s a male). But he seems to need mommy more – how interesting to read about the weaning process- both cubs about the same. Heartbreaking that these cubs will return to China – maybe Tai could breed with Mei Lan.