For a few years now, I have been a panda narrator at the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station and have enjoyed watching pandas go through different stages in life as well as their day-to-day changes. I have always admired our keepers and researchers at the Zoo for what they do for our animals here and what they do for the conservation community. Our keepers must do cleaning and feeding on a schedule as well as be incredibly observant of their animals and noticing changes in behavior. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of that and learn valuable lessons from our Panda Team.
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Russ Van Horn is currently in Peru to study Andean (spectacled) bears. Read his previous post, Bear Care in Conservation Terms.

In my last post, I rambled on about why conservation of Andean (or spectacled) bears, and conservation in general, matters, from a scientific viewpoint. This time around I’ll wade into some of the other reasons we work for conservation.

The e-mail that started me on these two posts highlighted a Web site showing some hunters with big game “trophies.” In this case, the trophies were taxidermy mounts of large mammals, mostly carnivores. In the background was a stuffed Andean bear, and the presence of this stuffed bear disturbed the e-mail’s writer and at least some of its readers.
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I saw a bear. Okay, I saw six. And it only took a couple of hours. I’ve been working with bears for many years now, and this is not what I’m used to. I’ve worked most extensively with giant pandas, and it took me years to see a panda in the wild. Recently, I started working with Andean (or spectacled) bears and, with a lot of sweat and hard work (and the help of an experienced collaborator), managed to see ONE in Peru (see post The Bear Goes Over the Mountain). But here, polar bears are everywhere! For now.

I’m in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, known as the polar bear capital of the world. I’m here as a guest of my friends and collaborators (and supporters!) at Polar Bears International. This is a terrific organization, and they have given me a terrific opportunity. More on that later. The bears are beautiful! I can’t wait to share more about the bears in my next posts.
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I’m sorry, but the saying “a face only a mother can love” does not apply here. In my job I see many baby animals that make my heart melt. But, now that our 12-week-old panda cub has his eyes wide open, and he is able to lift and hold his head up, even if only for a brief moment, he seems to have a hypnotic power that holds you dead in your tracks when he looks at you. At least I want to believe that he’s looking at me. And his usually quiet nature…well, it makes him even more intriguing!
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In May of 2008, the polar bear was classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This historic listing was heralded as a timely and necessary protection for this magnificent animal. But as climate change was identified as the primary threat to the persistence of the polar bear, the legislation clearly eliminated any possibility of using the listing to initiate or enforce regulations that would curb greenhouse gas emissions. For those of us involved in polar bear conservation, we were left scratching our heads. How was this listing any more than window dressing if there was no way for it to drive the changes that would promote polar bear conservation?
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Russ Van Horn is currently in Peru to study Andean (spectacled) bears. Read his previous post, Andean Bears and Cameras.

An e-mail was posted recently on the Andean bear e-mail network that got me thinking about the question “Why do we care about Andean bears?” I realized that I was not only thinking about this question, but also pondering “Why do we care about the conservation of nature?” I’m not sure I can clearly answer these questions, and I’m sure I won’t say anything that hasn’t been said before by someone else, but here goes. In this post I’ll focus on the reasons for (bear) conservation presented from a scientific viewpoint, but there are other reasons for caring about conservation. I’ll write about those in my next post.
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Hello again, panda fans! I’m happy to report that Bai Yun’s newest cub is doing well. As always, Bai Yun is an excellent mother.

You may have noticed that the den floor looks a little different as of late. It’s a little less smooth, a little lower against the den walls, and Bai has been bringing in and rearranging fresh bamboo pieces. Now that the cub is a little big bigger and is starting to scoot around, the Panda Team has decided that it’s safe to clean out some of the older, dusty bamboo. (more…)

The Panda Team met this morning to mull over the choice names for our new panda cub. After narrowing the submitted names each day to 5, the short list before us today held about 50 selections for us to consider. We sought the assistance of a staff member who is a native Chinese speaker, in order to ensure we knew the correct pronunciation and meaning of the names.
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When keeper Heidi carried our now almost 11-week-old (76 days old) giant panda cub into the exam room, my initial reaction was, “Oh no, we’ve disturbed him!” From the very first minute he was softly protesting. It was truly a protest, a “Can I have just five more minutes?” kind of plea. Or maybe I’m just recalling what I thought when my alarm woke me this morning…
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San Diego Zoo researchers are in Peru to study Andean (or spectacled) bears. Read a previous post, To See A Bear.

We awake in the predawn twilight, rouse ourselves out of our sleeping bags, down some coffee, and head for the viewpoint, hoping to spot last night’s bear making the ascent back up from the waterhole. José begins to gesticulate wildly, pointing to a dark form moving slowly up the face of the cliff.
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