As many of you sharp-eyed and diligent Cam-watchers have noticed, there have been some changes at the Giant Panda Research Station: Gao Gao and Su Lin have changed places. Gao has settled in nicely, after preliminary investigations, to the right-hand exhibit area and is, as usual, oblivious to everything except his bamboo. (Visitors? Narrators? What? Who?) Good ol’ Gao is quickly back to his easygoing eating/sleeping routine, such as it is, and visitors are pleased to see him again.
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It’s time to celebrate bears! The San Diego Zoo’s annual Bear Awareness Days event will be held May 8 to 11, 2008. If you’re not familiar with this event, it’s a fun way for us to bring awareness to our guests about bears and their conservation needs. We are extremely lucky here at the San Diego Zoo to have 5 of the 8 bear species in our collection, and we invite you to learn more about them by joining us for bear talks and other bear activities that we have scheduled for this year’s event.
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The Spring Break crowds are pretty much behind us, and we’re settling into “field trip season” here at the San Diego Zoo. Everyone’s anxious to visit the pandas and see The Baby, but Zhen Zhen’s not always cooperating. Curling up in the gray-green hammock, even at 31 pounds (14 kilograms) she’s not yet large enough to be seen well over the hammock’s edge. That makes the hammock one of my least favorite of ZZ’s favorite napping spots.
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As I ran out of my office this morning to attend to a few errands around the San Diego Zoo, I looked up in the trees at the panda exhibit and saw Zhen Zhen, happily scaling branches and playing with leaves above me. Yesterday, as I checked the queue to see how our bears were doing, Zhen was up in those trees, skirting around the obstacles she encountered and playfully enjoying her view of those below. As many of you panda watchers know, our cub spends a lot of her time above the ground, in places where neither the keepers nor her mother can get to her.
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It is 7:30 p.m. and all the keepers have returned to the Breeding Center here in Wolong, China, in hopes of finding a mate for Fei Fei, a female giant panda (pictured). Fei Fei has spent the last week being introduced to Lu Lu and Wu Gang (males). An introduction involves a male being kept in his indoor enclosure while the female is let into the male’s outdoor exhibit. The female will now have the opportunity to walk about the exhibit and investigate the male’s scent. Once the female has checked out every inch of the exhibit, she will start to bleat or chirp if she finds the scent to her liking. If the female is not interested, she will happily sit down and begin eating the male’s bamboo.
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As a zookeeper, I see a lot of animals that change over time. Some changes are subtle and some are significant. This change, however, seemed a little sweeter than most, which is why I want to share it with you. I’m a senior keeper in the Children’s Zoo at the San Diego Zoo, but I occasionally help out at the Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station. It had been a few weeks since I had worked with our giant pandas, along with our newest arrival, Zhen Zhen. I was expecting certain milestones of growth; however, I was surprised when I saw just how many!
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It must have been the weather, or the first full day of spring, or the adoring crowds coming to see her, her sister, and her mother, or just because, but Su Lin (pictured) was having one fine ol’ time in her enclosure Friday morning, March 21. The weather had been just blissfully beautiful, and she was tearing around like the high-spirited youngster (now 2½ years old) that she is. Up the trees, down the rocks, into the hollow tree, and up again, hanging by her heels, into the pool, wrestling with a log, the bushes, and tree branches; anything she could grab, around and around. It was unusual and very entertaining for the many guests who’ve come from all over the country and the world during this Spring Break season. It’s especially gratifying that she chose this week to “cut loose,” with so many people here to enjoy it.
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It is just before the sun rises here in Wolong and quiet enough to hear a pin drop. I am on my way into the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda to take audio recordings of the giant pandas before the keepers arrive with the long-awaited carts of fresh bamboo. As I make my way through the facility, some of the giant pandas are still asleep in positions that could make it impossible for any human to walk the next day! Some are in trees with their heads hanging upside-down, while others are passed out flat on their back with their arms and legs sticking out in all different directions. Several of the giant pandas are munching away on pieces of bamboo they have saved from the day before. It is clear that their eyes are focused on me, just in case I might have tasty treat in hand.
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Gao Gao, San Diego Zoo

I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce a new scientific program on panda vocal communication. I’d also like to introduce you to Jen Keating, who will be writing blogs about this program from Wolong, China, our long-time partner in panda conservation.

Any visitor to our panda exhibit at the San Diego Zoo or our Web site knows that we’ve had a long-standing interest in how pandas communicate. Why are we so interested in knowing what pandas are saying to each other? There are many reasons, but mostly because communication is fundamental for successful reproduction. Without communication, mates would be unable to locate one another or negotiate the delicate courtship process leading to mating.
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I have recently begun watching Chinook (pictured) and Kalluk as a part of a team of researchers conducting a breeding study on polar bears at Polar Bear Plunge at the San Diego Zoo. One day each week I observe this male-female pair as they come out on exhibit in the morning, recording their behavior and looking for signs of estrus-related behavior from them. It has been a while since I had the pleasure of routinely watching polar bears. The last time I participated in research on this species it was when our polar bear family included individuals with names like Buzz, Neil, Bonnie, and Castor; if those names are familiar to you, then you know how long ago that study effort was!
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