Yun Zi continues to grow and thrive. In my previous post (see New Kids on the Block), I mentioned that the pandas receive small amounts of yam and carrot and apple as tasty treats. Yun Zi has not started eating apples; he likes the smell of them and will mouth them, as he does other plant material, but he lets them fall out of his mouth. The fact that he likes the smell has been useful. We try to coax him to move between areas, and smelling a piece of apple sometimes stimulates his interest in moving forward. Interestingly, carrots and yams don’t get the same response!
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Many of the San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cam viewers have asked about Gao Gao, our adult male panda and father of our latest cutie, Yun Zi. Although he is not currently on exhibit, I’m happy to report that he’s doing very well! He and his daughter Su Lin usually rotate every few weeks between the main viewing exhibit and the off-exhibit enclosure). But Su Lin is currently undergoing hearing studies by our research team, and to move her from the off-exhibit enclosure to the soundproof room where the study is done every morning would take away so much from the study itself. So for right now, it’s more practical for bears and keepers to keep everyone where they are at this time.
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The first time I saw Yun Zi, the San Diego Zoo’s newest panda cub, it happened to be the first time he was let onto exhibit. Bai Yun, his mom, was sitting near the entry gate, munching on bamboo. The cub was in the tunnel, just inside the door, and was very unsure about what to do.
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Here are some questions posed by our panda blog post readers, along with answers…

Question #1
I have had the wonderful experience of watching the movies of the other zoos where the pandas are. Seen the little cubs, many all together playing, and tussling, and generally having fun and exercise. So I have noticed that Yun Zi (roly poly) has nothing to play with, but the other pandas have many things to occupy them, besides each other…
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It’s amazing and wonderful how immensely popular our pandas have become around the world! We’re glad to able to share their activities and the development of our cubs through our Panda Cam. We have discovered, though, that the amount of bandwidth needed to keep up with the demand, especially with the addition of mobile devices and social networking, has been growing exponentially, and our costs are growing along with it. In order to keep our costs under control, we have implemented a 20-minute timeout on the Panda Cam. That simply means that after 20 minutes, the Panda Cam will stop streaming and freeze, but you can go back to it immediately by refreshing the page. It’s become quite costly for us to keep the Panda Cam streaming continuously for everyone who’s watching, so we hope that this 20-minute timeout will help keep our bills under control. Thank you to everyone who loves watching our pandas!

The San Diego Zoo’s Panda Team has provided some answers to questions posed by our blog post readers…

What does he weigh now?

Yun Zi weighs about 24 pounds (11 kilograms) now, and is growing every day. We do our best to weigh all of the pandas as often as possible.
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As we come to the end of January, people are coming from near and far to see our Yun Zi. Unfortunately, he’s not always the most active little boy you’ll see. What a lot of people don’t know is that he’s been awake and playing for about three and a half hours already by the time the San Diego Zoo opens at 9 a.m.
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Moderator’s note: One of our readers posted the following question, and keeper Kathy Hawk supplied an answer. We thought all of our panda fans would like to see it!

Panda Team: I watched Yunior’s early morning routine on Panda Cam. I’m curious about the training methods. I’m assuming that you were wanting Yunior to come to you? I noticed that you fed him treats and then backed off, avoided direct eye contact, and seemed to wait for him to approach you? Or is your method just to get him accustomed to having your presence in his space so you can approach him to pick him up? I’m just curious on the training methods and how they might differ between domestic animals and wild animals…
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Many of you are wondering about what type of schedule our pandas have….

The keepers arrive at 6 every morning to take care of the bears, with another keeper coming in a bit later for the afternoon shift. We feed the pandas three times throughout this period—they get a combination of bamboo, leafeater biscuits, carrots, yams, and apples each feeding. Right now, Bai Yun and Yun Zi are on exhibit every day from 9 a.m. to noon (guests must be in the queue line by 11:30). We will soon be working on a plan to transition them to the lower viewing exhibit.
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Now that Yun Zi is out on exhibit with Bai Yun in the mornings, many of you have been discussing the camera views in that area. The classroom cameras are all quite old, and during certain times of the day the angle of the sun can make viewing in that area difficult. Unfortunately, the panda facility does not have extra funds available to update the cameras in the classroom at this time. What’s more, it is also likely that Bai Yun and Yun Zi will not be in the classroom exhibit for the remainder of their time together. In the future, we will move them to the regular viewing area, probably into the spot currently occupied by Zhen Zhen. This will allow us to maintain only one exhibit area, with two public enclosures rather than three. The classroom will once again become a private, off-exhibit space for one of the pandas. Replacing a classroom camera now would only serve to allow a view of Yun Zi there for a short period of time.
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