Ronit is the San Diego Zoo’s 2007 Arctic Ambassador. She and other teens from around the world are in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to partipate in Polar Bears International’s Polar Bear Leadership Camp. Read her previous blog, Polar Bear Ambassadors in Helicopters!

Hello, for the last time, from the tundra,

Last night was our final night on the tundra, so we said goodbye with a bang. My group was once again in charge of dinner so, in our efforts to be conservationists, we raided the refrigerator and hosted a “Farewell to the Tundra” leftovers soirée. It was a pleasant evening: ambassadors and facilitators mulled around sipping orange juice and pop while munching on appetizer-sized bites of leftover hamburger, hot dog, lunch meats, veggies, burritos, and more. Then of course, for dessert we polished off three different flavors of ice cream, a plate of cookies, and leftover breakfast pastries. It was a sight to be seen! Meanwhile, a slideshow of everyone’s pictures, collectively taken during the trip, played on the wall. As giggles and gales of laughter were issued at our captured antics and sighs of awe were emitted at the stunning photos of polar bears and northern lights, we spent the night together singing, laughing, and making memories.
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There’s been a lot of thought, a lot of creativity, and a lot of fun in the names that have been suggested for our two-month-old female giant panda cub and we’re only half way through the suggestion period! Diego was one of more than 1,000 names suggested from Friday through Monday for our female panda cub. Unfortunately, not only do we consider this name masculine, but it’s also already taken by an ocelot that calls the San Diego Zoo home. Also, remember that the name will need to be in Chinese! But we thank you for all those names and will continue to accept name suggestions through October 14.
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Gram has arrived! Or left, actually. This past week our Indian rhino made the trip from the San Diego Zoo all the way to Kansas (see Laura’s previous blog, Gram the Rhino: New Experiences). It all started at 6:30 a.m. when we got the call that the trailer was here. I called Gram into the barn so his crate could be set up with his morning diet of hay and grain. He was let out and did not immediately go to his crate as usual; probably because he is never fed this early in the morning and I never get his exhibit cleaned in 3 minutes. Smart boy! I leaned over the bars to call him as he was walking back over to his barn door. I was a little nervous that for some reason today would be the day he decided to not come into the crate. Of course, he proved me wrong and walked right over and began eating his early morning roughage.
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See Suzanne’s previous blog, Homeward Bound, Part 1.

A panda cub in a large, natural pen at Wolong.

Since the middle of the last decade, significant changes have been afoot at the Wolong breeding center, ultimately to the benefit of the pandas as a whole. CRES researchers and other scientific and veterinary staff involved themselves, in collaboration with the Chinese researchers of Wolong, in all manner of inquiry about panda biology, nutrition, social dynamics, and reproduction. This effort resulted in a tremendous turnaround in captive panda management, and a population boom began at the world’s premier panda breeding center.
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In my last blog, Trash or Treasure for Polar Bears?, I wrote that Tatqiq (pictured standing on shelter) had decided to try on a plastic trash can lid as part of the enrichment process, and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) take it back off. As reported before, Tatqiq was perfectly fine wearing the lid around her neck and did not seem bothered by it in the least. After talking with my co-workers and having a face to face with our veterinarians, I was happy that we all agreed it would be better to leave her to her resources rather than have to anesthetize her.
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Ronit is the San Diego Zoo’s 2007 Arctic Ambassador. She and other teens from around the world are in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to partipate in Polar Bears International’s Polar Bear Leadership Camp. Read her previous blog, Snow on the Tundra Temporarily Disconnects Arctic Ambassador.

Today we had the tremendous opportunity to explore a polar bear maternal den. Hudson Bay Helicopters generously flew 24 of us in a fleet of 6 helicopters inland to a maternal den situated alongside Fletcher Lake. The flight was breathtaking, and we even had the chance to see a herd of caribou, asthe pilot descended so we could fly just above them! I have never liked flying, but this was an experience that was absolutely one of the most exhilarating in my life. We could see the crystalline ice covering the many lakes along the tundra surface and the abrupt change as the rocks of the coast became trees and streams. I was in a helicopter with four other ambassadors, and we had a great time snapping pictures of ourselves wearing the headsets and talking into the microphones. But as soon as we took off, silence ensued, broken only by gasps of delight and awe as the enormity of the tundra appeared.
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Ronit is the San Diego Zoo’s 2007 Arctic Ambassador. She and other teens from around the world are in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to partipate in Polar Bears International’s Polar Bear Leadership Camp. Read her previous blog, Connecting from the Tundra to School Kids.

It snowed! Okay, not enough to jump into or go sledding on with the polar bears, but Michael (a fellow ambassador from Australia) was so thrilled at seeing his first snow that he collected it from the corners of the buggy patios and created a snow ball. But that was about it. It is beautiful, though, to see white, fluffy snowflakes drifting to the ground, and catching them on my tongue is pure pleasure.
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If you haven’t seen by now, there’s been quite a stir when viewing the San Diego Zoo’s Polar Cam. Many of you have heard me share stories about the bears: what they like to eat, how well they get along, and how they love to play. Enrichment is a major part of their day. We try to minimize food enrichment, as it is often short lived and offers little variety in behavior. By offering a toy or object, we allow the bears choices as to how and if they interact with it. If you’ve visited our bears, you may have experienced some of the more “unusual” items such as burlap sacks, feathers, traffic cones, and even plastic lawn ornaments. One of their all-time favorites has always been the plastic lids to trash cans.
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The only thing more satisfying and exciting than hatching and rearing some of the most endangered species in the world is sending them off into native forests to be part of a restored Hawaiian ecosystem. As part of the recovery efforts to restore the biodiversity of Kipuka 21, the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program is in a two-month process, methodically releasing the Hawaii creeper (juvenile pictured above) and ‘akepa (female pictured below) back into a native ecosystem.
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Ronit is the San Diego Zoo’s 2007 Arctic Ambassador. She and other teens from around the world are in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, to partipate in Polar Bears International’s Polar Bear Leadership Camp. Read her previous blog, The Wildlife Can Be So Distracting Here!

Please excuse the delayed post; the storm mentioned here knocked out our Internet.

The wind is blustering and howling at the windows. The Lodge is actually rocking and shaking, as I write, from the gusts. Walking from car to car of the Lodge is an adrenaline rush with the incredible strength of the wind whipping my hair and forcing the door wide. If I don’t grab the door and throw all my weight against it, it smashes me against the wall as the wind blows. It is incredibly frightening and exhilarating to watch the tundra completely bashed by the wind. The temperature has also dropped significantly. This morning, rain droplets were being hurtled at the windows by the wind, but now the precipitation has frozen into icy snow; the ice hurts much more than the water when it is being driven into your cheeks at 37 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour). The windows are actually sheeted with ice, and the tundra is becoming covered in a thin whitish layer of icy snow.
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