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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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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As most of you know, we have begun accepting suggestions from the public for naming the San Diego Zoo’s infant panda. This is our 5th go-around with the naming process, and each time it seems we have more and more “audience participation” built in. The new feature this time will be the added online option for suggesting a name. At the end of it all there will be five names offered to you for voting. I thought you might like to know a bit more about how we get from the name suggestions to the voting process.

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The first thing you’ll think of when you meet Jirra the red kangaroo is that either you didn’t hear the name right, or we are color blind. Jirra isn’t colored red; she doesn’t even wear a red halter. She is colored gray and wears a blue halter.
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Getting to the Arctic Circle is not easy. When we left San Diego on Sunday, September 27, the weather forecast was predicting highs in the upper 90s. So the hard part started before I even left, having to put warm clothes in a suitcase with such hot weather outside. We stopped in Winnipeg for the first night and then flew onward to Churchill on a small plane that carried 16 of us teen ambassadors from places in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. I am attending Polar Bears International’s Teen Leadership Camp for a week. This cool program is done as a partnership between Polar Bears International and the Arctic Ambassador Center network of zoos that is headquartered at the San Diego Zoo.
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As many of you know, I have been working at the San Diego Zoo for nearly nine years now. Prior to stepping into the Elephant Odyssey Ambassador position (see post, What is an Elephant Odyssey Ambassador), I had worked as a keeper in the Children’s Zoo at the San Diego Zoo. Being a keeper is a dream job: working hands on with very unique animals from around the world and being able to share my experiences with our guests is more enjoyable than you can imagine.
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If you have stopped by the San Diego Zoo over the summer, chances are that you’ve seen the artistic pieces and jewelry of Rosendo Carillo de la Rosa on display in our exit gift shop, Zoo Store. Rosendo is a Wixarika Indian, more commonly known as the Huichol, and visits us every year from Jalisco, Mexico. He has visited the Zoo annually for the last several years, and every year he brings beautifully handcrafted pieces to share with our guests.
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Looking for a fresh way to experience the wildlife at the Wild Animal Park? I just took the coolest tour: a Rolling Safari on an off-road Segway X2. Having never been on such a contraption, which you move with subtle shifts of your weight on the footpads, I was grateful for the patient and thorough training by our guides. Though a bit nervous at the outset, after a few minutes of tooling around the training area, I was ready to tackle the cone course to manage my steering technique. It was clear that people who skateboard and ski take to the Segway like a rhino to a mud wallow. I, however, was a bit slow on the uptake, but soon was able to “zoom” (they can reach 8 miles per hour, which is actually a decent clip!) with the best of them.
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I see used spark plugs, shock absorbers, food cans, and metal pipes as rusty recyclables; Kioko Mwitiki sees the makings of a new animal sculpture! This famous artist from Kenya breathes life into recycled metal in a most creative way. His unique animal designs have been exhibited across East Africa and Europe, and now he’s returned to the San Diego Zoo and will be here through mid-October!
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If you haven’t been able to get a glimpse of the panda cub while Bai Yun is out of the den, here’s your chance. In this video, you’ll even hear it squawking for Mom!