As you walk into the Giant Panda Research Station at the San Diego Zoo, the first bear you see is Su Lin. She’s been going through some definite hormone changes recently, and our research team is monitoring her. With these changes comes a restlessness that makes it rather difficult for our guests to get a photograph of our girl! Currently, we are seeing her sleep a good part of the day, sitting in water and playing, and walking a good bit! These are all behaviors that we have seen previously with Bai Yun, so she’s really not surprising us, except with how early she started her estrus this year!
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For people viewing the giant panda cub here at the San Diego Zoo for the first time, seeing him up so high in the trees can be a little worrisome! So often we think of bears just keeping all four limbs on the ground. Well, we have bears that say, “No way!” to that. From the young age of four to five months, giant panda cubs begin climbing up the trees for a nap, a long snooze, to get out of Mom’s way, and to get away from danger!
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Neoteny: reaching sexual maturity while retaining juvenile characteristics.

Pandas are so cute. What draws us to them? Why does the panda appeal to so many people? The answer might be neoteny—keeping a juvenile appearance into adulthood. Babies are cute. Our own young have characteristics that we humans respond to such as a big, round head, large eyes, a high forehead, and a roly-poly body. We are programmed to respond to these babyish looks. Babies just make us like them and want to care for them. It is part of our human makeup.

Human babies aren’t the only young that attract us. Puppies appeal to us. They have the short snout, big eyes, high forehead, and clumsy way of moving. The attraction we have for our own babies also endears us the young of many mammals. (more…)

In recent years, Bai Yun has displayed behavioral signs of estrus in an unpredictable pattern. The pattern of expression has been very truncated, encompassing a few short days of intense behavior alerting us to her mating readiness. This has been a change from the pattern of her younger years, in which the behavioral trends in her estrus were more lengthy and signaled well in advance that her body was preparing for mating.
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I’ll never forget the first time I saw a real giant panda—it was 1987, and the San Diego Zoo was hosting the famous Fuzhou Zoo pandas, Basi and Yuan Yuan, that were here on a 200-day loan from China. These were the first giant pandas ever exhibited at our Zoo, and it was truly “panda-monium” around the city! I was elated the first time I saw these amazing black-and-white furry friends and continually thought of work-related reasons I needed to go into the canyon to see them! So, you can only imagine my exhilaration—as well as the depth of my emotions—when I had the incredible opportunity to hold a panda cub in my arms, touch its fur, feel its strength, and look into its eyes! It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I was really experiencing it!
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I am not sure I have ever seen something as cute as a baby panda. Of course, baby anything is adorable, but this is even beyond that. I have been caring for each of the San Diego Zoo’s giant pandas for over three years now, and I have seen them breed, give birth, and grow into their own unique individual selves. Most often each day is fairly routine in regard to their care and training. Every so often, however, certain days make an impression on me and my fellow keepers.
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I thought that since we have moved some pandas around here at the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station, I’d give you an update on everyone’s whereabouts. Now in our two off-exhibit classroom enclosures we have Gao Gao and Zhen Zhen. Gao is not going to be moved into the main viewing area right now; he is still undergoing training with our keepers for the hearing study we are doing (see post Panda Care). Gao is still practicing going to a set target when asked and sitting in one spot for an extended period of time.
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Here are answers to some questions posed by our readers…

Den closure
Yun Zi has officially left the DEN! Keepers are no longer allowing him access to the den, and this is a decision to help him get ready to go to the main exhibit soon. Yun Zi isn’t looking for the den. In fact, he’s too busy playing, and he sleeps in his climbing structure most of the time. This is completely normal, and we are so pleased with how things have been progressing. Currently he is about 30 pounds (13.6 kilograms) and growing every day. Bai Yun is about 234 pounds (106 kilograms) and looks wonderful wearing it!
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It was the day everyone had been waiting for…Bai Yun and Yun Zi’s big move to the main public viewing area. How did the bears respond to the transition? The post A New World highlights the events of the morning and gives a nice account of how the bears reacted to the change. But I thought I’d take a moment to write a bit about how we manage the bears and the decision-making process involved in facilitating a shift like this.
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After a lot of work and preparation, Bai Yun and Yun Zi have been moved into the main public viewing area of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station. So far, Yun Zi has been exploring his new exhibit and has been loving every second of it. Right after he entered the exhibit, following his mother, he began climbing around and checking everything out. We couldn’t be happier with this response!
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