As many of you know, giant panda Mei Sheng will be leaving us in October to become part of the breeding program at the Wolong Nature Reserve in China. To ease the transition to his new home, the keeper staff has come up with some new management strategies involving his diet and training program.
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Twelve weeks of summer flew by quickly and now I am writing to say goodbye to the Wild Animal Park and my summer internship there. I had a wonderful time carrying out my research project on the space use of the ungulates in the East Africa exhibit and feel that I have developed as a researcher in ways that will enable me to pursue a meaningful career in wildlife conservation. I also got to hone my public speaking skills by presenting my project multiple times to the staff and even the Zoological Society of San Diego’s Board of Trustees. The Zoo’s Undergraduate Summer Fellows program is a great way for aspiring researchers to get their hands dirty with some quality research experience!
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Gram, our Indian rhino, has made great progress in his crate training (see previous blog, How Do You Crate Train a Rhino?). After he was comfortable standing in the chute, I opened the door to his crate. The crate is a large wooden box with metal support beams all around. There is a detachable door on the front and back along with bars that drop vertically from the top. Quite a contraption for a rhino road trip! It weighs about 1,800 pounds (815 kilograms), is about 12 feet (3.6 meters) long and 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall.
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We have been very, very lucky here in San Diego to witness the birth of four healthy panda cubs. Each time, Bai Yun gave birth to a single infant and showed strong maternal instincts, so much so that staff need only sit by and watch her care for it. Bai Yun has always given the best of all possible circumstances. But in looking at the range of possibilities surrounding any cub birth, frankly, we have had it quite easy; pandas are certainly capable of more complex birthing scenarios than we have observed with Bai Yun.
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This morning the San Diego Zoo’s veterinarians were able to conduct the first exam on our new panda cub. Bai Yun left the den, after a long bout of nursing her cub, to eat some mid-morning snacks. During this brief window of opportunity, the keepers were able to collect the cub so that the vet staff could perform a quick exam. Everyone was excited to see our new addition. Personally, after watching it on the monitors in the video room for the past few weeks, it was nice to see the cub in person!
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It’s been nearly three weeks since we welcomed the arrival of the newest panda cub and it has been a joy to watch Bai Yun’s gentle mothering and nurturing yet again and to see the cub grow darker and rounder as the days go by. From a skinny, hairy, be-legged white “worm” to a pear-shaped miniature of Mom, no one ever seems to tire of watching them together. Bai has been exposing it in the early days for us to see, perhaps due to the hot and humid weather San Diego – and the Zoo – have been experiencing. The temperature dropped a bit today, a breeze came up, the humidity’s down, and once again, Bai had that little one snuggled up tighter. Hmmmm …a question for future research?
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Life has been very interesting lately for our okapi population. At the Wild Animal Park, we are fortunate enough to have a specialized piece of equipment called the Okapi Restraint Box (ORB). This consists of a padded stall with a movable wall to limit the animal’s movement and access doors on both sides as well as the front and rear panels. The animals aren’t physically restrained: we train them to accept the ORB as a positioning tool, using positive reinforcement. One of the biggest challenges has been discovering each animal’s favorite reward. Their tastes are surprisingly individual; what works for one does not necessarily motivate the others.
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Gram, our Indian rhinoceros, is about to go on a trip. He was born at the Wild Animal Park in 1999 and has been a popular resident at the San Diego Zoo since 2004. Now it is time for him to move on to greener pastures. Literally. He is going to the Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Kansas, a new park opening this fall.
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Giant panda Bai Yun has had a highly variable pattern of den departures in the last week. After having her first bamboo meal on August 12, she began coming out of the den several times a day for short feeding bouts. Over time, these bouts lengthened from 1 to 3 minutes to as much as 12 to 13 minutes spent feeding. However, after getting her fill for a few days, she opted to take August 16 off, with no den departures for more than 31 hours. And today, she is back in top form, having left the den nine times as of 8:30 p.m. thus far.
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On August 9, Safarani and her calf, Sukari, made their way out of the maternity yard where they had been since the youngster was born on July 10 (see previous blog, Okapi Calf To See a Bigger World!). Safarani was most anxious to get back out into the larger exhibit space; we realized after watching her for a little while after the move that it was because she loves to eat all the plantings around the exhibit, something she’s not had access to for a couple of months. Now we know who’s been mowing through those plantings!
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