Many of you have noticed the new wall by the beach. This is the new “Guest Experience Wall” that will be unveiled next year when the new interpretive area opens. However, Tatqiq has ignored all memos saying that this will happen next year. She has installed herself as the overseer of all guest greetings and is chief model for all polar bear close-up photography. In brief, she is THE Arctic Ambassador, and she is holding court every day as though she is the queen of the beach, no longer the princess! What an incredible opportunity now to have only three inches of glass separate you from a polar bear so willing to pose for your photos! More surprises are ahead when we do officially open the wall in March.

Kalluk has also enjoyed having the entire beach area back. Every night he chooses between sleeping on what is left of his kiddie pool or building a soft, cozy sand bed. He does seem to enjoy watching the show Tatqiq puts on with the guests and will join from time to time. He also spends time watching Chinook next door in the yard. I’m not sure what he is thinking. Perhaps he, too, is wondering if cubs are on the way. If not, we expect to begin seeing changes in him by the end of December as his hormones prepare him for the next breeding season.

For me, I am in Canada, working with our conservation partner, Polar Bears International, and spending time with the polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba. This will be my ninth fall with our incredible furry ice bears. Even in such a short time I have seen great changes in the polar bears due to the change in ice. Please take the time to read our student Arctic Ambassador Daniel Straub’s impressions of his time with the bears (see post Northern Lights Perfect Backdrop for Polar Bears) and the great information shared by Dr. Ron Swaisgood of his first adventure to Churchill (see post Hope for Polar Bears). With how fast the Arctic is changing, anyone lucky enough to experience this disappearing land of ice must be an ambassador to inspire others, who can’t come north, to care enough to make the changes to save this beautiful habitat and the animals and people who live here. Tatqiq is a great model as an Arctic Ambassador; she’d love to share the role with you!

JoAnne Simerson is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

I recently traveled with a few colleagues to north-central Baja California, Mexico, to conduct field research for the San Diego Zoo’s Golden Eagle Project (see previous post, Golden Eagle Helicopter Survey). A wind farm is being designed for future development in the Sierra Juarez, and the San Diego Zoo is involved with pre-construction research of habitat use and demographics of golden eagles. The objective of the project is to examine what parts of the mountain range are used by eagles and how and when they use each part. Our findings may help to minimize future interactions between eagles and turbines.

I am the new field ornithologist for the Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research and just joined the team in August. Because so little is known about the eagles in the area, we’ve had to resort to good, old-fashioned detective work—that means sitting and waiting to see eagles. On our last trip in September, we saw several raptor species including turkey vultures, peregrine falcons, and American kestrels during our surveillance from our high perch at the edge of the desert, but no eagles (darn!). We have previously observed eagles in this area and know that they breed here because of nest surveys that took place last March from a helicopter (brrrrr). However, we don’t know if they stick around all year or if they leave after the breeding season is over. So we decided we needed to increase our surveillance effort for the eagles during the non-breeding season. Our objective in the week-long observation period was to make note of any eagle (and other bird) activity in the area—but Mother Nature had other plans for us.

The first day that we were there, it was really windy–the winds were gusting up to 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour)! We know this because another part of our mission was to set up weather stations that send all the data they gather directly to us at the Institute’s Beckman Center via the Internet (in real time!). Birds (especially big, heavy ones like eagles) don’t like to fly when it’s too windy because it takes a lot of energy to stay in air in those conditions, so we only stayed out for half the day. We’re lucky nobody got blown off the mountain! We went back out the next morning to continue our surveillance, and it snowed! The snow only lasted for about 30 minutes, but the wind had shifted, and it was cold (which is saying a lot, because I’m from Wisconsin!). The rest of the day was sunny, but still a little windy, and we still didn’t see any eagles. Our week continued much the same way—clear and windy and no eagles.

I’m not going to lie; at times we got pretty bored. But we also got to spend a week outside without worrying about e-mails and cell phones and all the other activities that take up too much time in our lives. We got to enjoy just being out in nature, which is the reason most of us became ecologists—to save nature so future generations can enjoy it, too. So the lesson from this trip is that I have to be patient—sooner or later, I’ll see an eagle and, in the meantime, I’ve got a great view!

Colleen Wisinski is a research associate with the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

As the weather gets cooler, we expect that she may be more inclined to go into denning mode. Isolating herself in the den is one of the strongest behavioral cues we’d expect to see, letting us know that birth is imminent. Unfortunately, this might happen one month or one day before she gives birth. Our advice to the San Diego Zoo’s extended family of polar bear lovers: stay tuned! We will keep you up to date on any changes we see.

Megan Owen is a conservation program specialist at the San Diego Zoo.

Watch video of an ultrasound procedure being done on Chinook.

What I want to talk about to today is hope—hope for conservation, and hope for our planet even though it is facing unprecedented environmental challenges. I’m in Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, working with friends and collaborators at Polar Bears International. It’s a surreal experience going out on the Tundra Buggies and seeing wild polar bears. But underneath this joyful experience there is also sadness, because I know that this “polar bear capital” may one day have no polar bears. By now, most of us know that the polar bears are losing their sea-ice habitat and here, at the southern end of their range, they will disappear first. We’ve already lost almost a quarter of them in the past 15 years. In another 15, there may be no polar bears left in Churchill.

So, given this gloomy scenario, why am I writing about hope? Well, what’s the alternative? Despair? Gloom and doom? That never got anyone anywhere. Yes, we have to face up to this crisis, but the good news is that we are the ones that got us into this mess, so we can get us out. We’re consuming too many resources. We use energy like there’s no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, for us and for nature. We have to change our ways. If we do, if we make those daily decisions to do the right thing, it will make a difference. I won’t go into what doing the right thing is here—we know the answer more or less: turn off the light; turn down your thermostat; drive less, carpool more; keep our forests. All these things help us reduce our carbon footprint and slow down the climate change we set in motion by overproducing these greenhouse gases.

So, today, why am I hopeful? Well, it’s inspiring to be here with these people, the people affiliated with Polar Bears International who are so passionate, so dedicated to making a difference. We are doing something—that always gives hope. We are reaching out to students around the country and helping them to understand climate change, its impacts on polar bears and other wildlife, and how they can do something. Doing something always helps create hope. I recommend YOU do something. It will make you feel better, I promise.

Part of the PBI Team: Evan Richardson, a wildlife ecologist for Environment Canada and a Ph.D. student at University of Alberta.

We’re also working with many other zoos in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to fill in other information gaps—things that the field biologists don’t know because it is too difficult to study in the wild bears that range over hundreds of miles in search of seals. Things like reproduction, physiology, and olfactory communication. And, most importantly, we are talking about climate change and all the threats to nature as we know it. We are talking to anyone who will listen. We have to get this message out, now, before it’s too late.

And I have hope because I look around and see people talking more about going green. I see business and government investing in green technology. Maybe more people will walk the talk. Maybe the momentum is starting to change. Maybe we can reverse climate change and other destructive activities. I hope so.

Ron Swaisgood is director of Applied Animal Ecology for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

Watch the San Diego Zoo’s polar bears daily on Polar Cam.

First, a primer on cub vocalizations: When panda cubs are born, their vocal repertoire consists of three basic types of sounds: croaks, squawks, and cries. The croak is the lowest in intensity and is generally thought to be a sound of comfort made by the cub, a signal to its mother that all is well. Sometimes a croak can take on a pip, or a sharper sound that is brief, but generally a croak sounds like a little frog or a creaky door. A squawk is a sharp sound that signals a measure of discomfort in the cub. We distinguish between soft and loud squawks, as they can vary in intensity. The louder the squawk, the more urgent the cub’s message to its mother. When a loud squawk becomes very intense and is repeated for several seconds, the vocalization becomes a cry, the most anxious of cub sounds. It’s the sound designed to focus all of the mother’s attention on the infant, a signal of distress. Those of you with children know how riveting your infant’s cries can be; such is the cry of the panda cub.

At birth, the panda is tiny, a few ounces at most, tiny compared to its large, 200-pound mother. The mother panda, for her part, is usually tired and sluggish in the early postpartum days and is further fatigued by caring for her newborn. Unlike a human mother, the panda cannot settle her cub into a crib or bassinet while it sleeps. She must continue to hold the infant close to her, keeping the naked neonate warm. Should she tire enough, she could easily crush that little cub with her large body. But one loud squawk brings her to attention, as if saying, “Ouch, Momma, too tight.” Other urgent vocalizations may signal hunger or a need for more warmth. In this way the cub’s regular vocalizations work with the mother to ensure the denning phase, a time of close contact of the two bears, is a successful one.

But those loud squawks and cries are incredibly loud, indeed. Ensconced in the den, these intense cub vocalizations can be heard throughout the keepers’ areas, many yards away. Imagine bears in a wild den and what a signal this could be to predators that might enjoy a panda cub snack. In the early denning phase, mother panda fasts and remains with her cub most of the time and would be able to defend and deter any predatory attack. But she has to eat sometime…

Once she begins her forays from the den to eat, she is initially very attentive to any sound of the cub she has left behind. We have seen Bai Yun, who is as safe as can be in her favorite bedroom areas, run quickly back to calm a squawking or crying cub that objects to her absence. Part of this may be to soothe and calm the infant, an act of reassurance from Mom to cub. Part of this may also be to avoid drawing attention to the den with the loud cub noise. Once mother has left the den, the cub is unguarded, and a predator could have an easy meal.

As time goes on, the cub adjusts to its mother’s departures and simply rests while she is away feeding. As pandas rely on bamboo for sustenance, and bamboo is known to be a low-quality food source with respect to caloric intake, meeting their nutritional demands requires the intake of large quantities of the plant. This takes time. As mother panda’s appetite returns to normal, she must spend longer and longer periods feeding. She could be away for some time in meeting her needs. In fact, research on wild pandas has documented absences of more than 24 hours during the denning phase! The mother must range as far as necessary to fill her belly: she and her cub are depending on that nutrition.

Fortunately, as the cub gains weight and hair, it is comfortable resting quietly in the den while mother is away. The regular squawks and croaks fall away. Toward the end of the denning phase, our cubs might go most of the day without making a sound, even if Bai Yun enters the den and interacts with her offspring. It’s not uncommon for Bai Yun to pick up her cub, toss it around in her paws, biting gently, all while the cub remains silent. It will flop around in her paws like a limp noodle. It is as if the cub is in a milk-induced stupor, and cannot be roused until its belly needs filling again. Surely this is a good state to leave a panda cub in if you know you will be gone from the den a long time! Predators aren’t going to hear a cub that is making no noise.

So you see, at this stage of the game our little boy isn’t terribly vocal. Even when provoked – as he has been at times when given his shots – he can have a pretty subdued response. Usually, we go through much of the day without hearing much of anything out of the den, especially when Bai Yun is out resting or feeding in other areas.

No need to be concerned about Bai Yun’s long absences. She is still attentive, and if her little cub was uncomfortable, or needed feeding, he would vocalize and she will respond. But both the cub and the mother are okay with these long excursions from the den. It is a natural evolution of their relationship, one that is seen with wild and captive pandas alike. When you wonder about what Bai Yun is doing when you can’t see her on the Panda Cam, you can rest assured that she is doing exactly what she needs to be doing – what she is biologically driven to do – and that following her instincts will ensure the health and well-being of both mother and cub.

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

Culprits of the nighttime shakedown? Visitors to the Tundra Lodge are common, including some devious ones that shook the lodge in the wee hours of the night.

This really is shaping up to be an amazing experience. Each day I go out on the Tundra Buggy, run by Frontiers North Adventures. Oh, and by the way, they are giving us a free pass on the Tundra Buggy and a room in the Tundra Lodge. They like what we are doing, trying to bring more attention to the plight of the polar bear. And it’s hard to imagine a species more deserving of attention than polar bears. They are the world’s largest terrestrial carnivores, and they are impressive.

My first night in the Tundra Lodge, I awoke to more than a little gentle rocking. The Tundra Lodge is somewhat like a train car up on monster truck wheels. Apparently, one of the polar bears thought it might be fun to give us all a little shake. I saw visions of our “enrichment feeders” we give our bears at the San Diego Zoo—objects they have to shake until some tasty treat drops out. Was I the tasty treat? Of course, several feet above the ground and separated by a steel wall, I was safe. But that’s the kind of place Churchill is. Wild tundra. Subarctic wilderness. Polar bears shaking your lodge.

Up close and personal! Okay, so I did use a zoom lens, but this guy was pretty close. What an incredible opportunity to see these wild bears!

A yearling cub spots a big male nearby. Vigilance pays off for youngsters. If they don’t stay away from adult males, they may end up becoming a snack.

Families of three are less frequent than they were a decade ago. This female is doing well to have two surviving cubs.

Although addressing a serious issue, this has been great fun, joining in with so many inspired and inspiring people, literally motivated to change the world. And all against this wonderful backdrop, the tundra of Churchill. Look at the pictures I’m posting. These really are fabulous animals. C’mon guys, we can’t let this animal disappear.

Ron Swaisgood is director of Applied Animal Ecology for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

Watch the San Diego Zoo’s polar bears daily on Polar Cam.

The surprise hatchling desert tortoise

DTCC volunteer Jim holds his exciting find.

Rachel put the newest addition to our herd in a small dish of water to give him a good drink and offered him a bite of food. When baby tortoises are in their shells, they are bent over, much like the fetal position of mammals, and this little guy is still bent over a bit and showing the last remains of his yolk under his plastron (bottom shell). He even has some egg shell still stuck on his head. You can see from the picture above that our little guy has a bit of a deformity in his carapace (top shell): it is indented on the whole right side. But when all is said and done, he seems healthy and certainly happy, regardless of his physical appearance, which we find endearing anyway.

He will now undergo a full medical exam, and he will join our other young hatchlings in our brand-new predator-proof hatchling quarantine pens, where he will hibernate for his first winter. This is a very important step for hatchlings, because studies have shown that hatchlings that are allowed to hibernate for their first winter are more likely to be healthy later in life. Thanks to volunteer Jim, this little tortoise, found accidentally on a cold October day, will live a long and healthy life.

Paula Kahn is a conservation program manager for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. Read her previous post, Tortoises on TV.

A large outdoor mural in the main plaza of Urcos, Peru, includes important icons of the local culture: an Andean bear, an ukuku, and El Señor de Qoyllor Rit’i.

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.
Aside from some legal and conservation issues, what was it that bothered people? Was it merely the carcass of a dead bear that got people riled? No, I doubt that was it, because bears die all the time. Was it because the stuffed bear was disgusting looking? Maybe some people thought so, but I think Andean bears are pretty neat looking; there are plenty of stuffed bears in natural history museums, and most people don’t take offense at them, so I don’t think that’s what irritated people.

I think what struck a nerve was that the stuffed bear had presumably been hunted in order to provide an experience for the hunter, and the trophy represented this experience. The reason the hunter wanted this experience, and this trophy, was because at least some of his values (the photo showed only men) were different than those of the people who were later repulsed by the picture. People value bears, and nature in general, for different reasons, and those non-scientific values are important to consider for conservation of nature, and of culture.

Bromeliads in cloud forest near the village of Capiri, Peru

So, why do we pay more attention to bears than bromeliads? Well, I think the big teeth and claws are part of it. When I was a little kid growing up in rural Minnesota, for me one of the best parts of going to pick wild blackberries was the chance that I might see a bear also going to pick wild blackberries. I was a little scared of black bears, but I respected and admired them, too. In an odd way, I guess my attitude toward black bears was a little bit like my attitude toward my older brothers. I wasn’t unique in thinking of bears as being a little like people.

Because some of their behaviors and some aspects of their physical appearance appear like those of humans, many human societies have considered bears to be unusual animals, not quite like other wildlife, but not quite like humans, either. As I mentioned in my last post, Andean bears don’t hurt people, yet these bears are important in traditional culture where they live. One thing that has puzzled some biologists interested in Andean bears is that although the art of some pre-Hispanic cultures depicts many species in great detail, there are no depictions of Andean bears. Bears leave so much evidence of their existence, as tracks, leftover food, and feces, that it seems impossible that these earlier people didn’t know about bears.

Dr. S. Paisley, who’s worked on Andean bears in Bolivia and Peru, has hypothesized that these people did know about bears, but the people didn’t think of bears as animals, so they didn’t portray them as animals. Those of us descended from the European cultures do think of them as animals, so we simply don’t recognize Andean bears when they’re portrayed as something else.

In a post I wrote last June, I referred to the festival of Qoyllor Rit’I (see Andean Bears: Field Research Continues). This is a major spiritual and cultural event for the Andean people living east of the city of Cusco, Peru. During Qoyllor Rit’i, hundreds of people make an incredibly difficult pilgrimage to a sacred site in the high mountains. Along with the pilgrims go people costumed as ukukus, a term that sometimes refers to tricksters serving a spiritual function, that sometimes refers to mythical hybrids between Andean bears and humans, and that sometimes refers to Andean bears. The bear may not have often been depicted in historical art, but it clearly has cultural value.

Different species of animals and plants have great cultural significance around the world. The Kuhl’s lory (a small parrot) has great meaning in the traditional culture of the Cook Islands, yet it has been driven extinct on several islands on which it used to live. When it was recently reintroduced to one of those islands, the local people celebrated the return of an icon and restoration of a lost part of their culture (see post Return of the Lory). If the Andean bear disappears, what will be lost from the culture of the Andes?

Every society that has ever existed interacted with plants and animals, and they have value to us. By conserving species, we conserve part of what makes us human.

Russ Van Horn is a senior researcher with the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

One of my first wild polar bears here at Churchill. Thin at this time of year, waiting for the ice to re-freeze so they can hunt, they are still large and powerful predators.

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.

Nothing to do, a polar bear might as well sleep. Occasionally, they may eat some berries or even some kelp, but the best strategy is just to conserve energy until the ice returns.

I won’t explain the science, I think most of us know this by now. The sea-ice is shrinking, shrinking faster than even the most pessimistic models of five years ago. In 2007, we all were shocked when we lost a million square miles of sea-ice: that’s Alaska, Texas, and Washington combined. This year is fortunate—the Arctic is getting a little break from the warmer temperatures. But the trend is unmistakable: the Arctic is getting warmer, and it is losing its ice.

View from the Tundra Buggy. At Churchill at this time of year, this may be the highest density of polar bears anywhere. This is where they come to wait for the ice… and check out the tourists and researchers!

It seems clear to me: we must do something about climate change. Not just for the polar bears. Giant pandas, too, may lose habitat to climate change. I recently visited another spectacular site for Andean bears, in the dry forest. If climate change brings even drier climates, the water holes will dry up and the bears will be gone. And, in Southern California, kangaroo rats (see post Roo Rats Released), the desert bighorn, and the desert tortoises (see post Tortoises on TV) of the Mojave desert are all predicted to suffer from the hotter, drier climate forecast for our region. All these species and their ecosystems, and many more, are being altered by climate change, and the effects will not be good.

That’s why I’m here, working with Polar Bears International. We are here to see these bears and bring this message into your homes and schools around the world. Climate change is real, we are the primary cause, and we can and must do something about it. If we don’t, we will live in a very different world, and it may be a world without polar bears. Is that what we want?

Ron Swaisgood is director of Applied Animal Ecology for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

Watch the Zoo’s polar bears daily on Polar Cam.

Collette Wieland from KVBC with Mojave Max

We also introduced a family of 18 tortoises, ranging from hatchlings to adults, that all came to us through our Desert Tortoise Hotline from the same home and were not in very good health; it gave us the perfect opportunity to encourage people to surrender their pet desert tortoises to the Clark County Desert Tortoise Hotline here in southern Nevada so we can rehabilitate the tortoises and eventually release the healthy ones into the desert to help recover the species. We are confident that all 18 tortoises will be successfully rehabilitated by this time next year, and maybe even sooner.

We also reminded viewers that it is against the law to take a tortoise from the desert, or to even touch one because the interaction with the tortoise may cause it to void (pee or poop) and can result in dehydration and eventually even death. Collette Wieland interviewed both me and Roy Averill-Murray from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and she was very enthusiastic about helping us to reach out to the public to address issues regarding desert tortoises and to share our mission here at the DTCC, which is to play a critical role in conserving and restoring wild Mojave desert tortoise populations and their native habitat. Thank you KVBC for helping to support our efforts in saving the desert tortoise species!

Paula Kahn is a conservation program manager for the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. Read a previous post, Desert Tortoises: Unexpected Nests.

Note: The Clark County Desert Tortoise Hotline number is 702-593-9027.