Many of you have sent in questions about our pandas and their care. Here are some answers from the Panda Team!

Pandas and bamboo consumption
Pandas are carnivores and have the teeth one expects a carnivore to have. It’s true that old pandas can show tooth wear; we crack open the thickest bamboo pieces to help protect our pandas’ teeth from wear. Their digestive system produces large amounts of mucous, to help the passage of their fibrous diet.
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Norman, one of our clouded leopards that lived at the San Diego Zoo’s Hunte Amphitheater, is one of many animals that have moved their digs to the Zoo’s Urban Jungle zone. He isn’t really a show diva, but he does enjoy his quiet downtime, and I must say we pay close attention to the pleasures we provide for him as he acclimates to his new domicile. His daily schedule includes a crated visit to Backstage Pass (he is getting used to the program in a behind-the-scenes location and one day soon he will make a grand entrance for our Backstage Pass family) and loads of cat naps. It’s the cat-nap part that I’m going to inform you about, just in case you have a cat at home that loves its creature comforts; you might pick up a few new tricks to add to your repertoire!
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My last post about the jaguars at the San Diego Zoo (see A Zoo Legend Finds a New Home) generated some questions I’d like to answer. Now that Orson, our black jaguar, is living in the Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey next door to a pair of lions (see post The Pride of Elephant Odyssey), readers were curious to know what the two different cat species thought of each other and what that future holds for possible jaguar cubs.
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Over the next few weeks, we will be transitioning little Yun Zi and his mother to another part of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Research Station. The pair will cross through tunnels, and Yun Zi will encounter new sights and scents along the way. Some of these will be from his siblings, Su Lin and Zhen Zhen. This will all be interesting to him, and we will probably see increased olfactory activity in both mother and cub. However, encountering the scent of other bears, even relatives, wouldn’t be unusual for a panda in the wild.
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It’s hard to believe how fast time is flying. It seems just last week we were still wondering if we’d be hearing the pitter patter of cub paws (see post Polar Bears: Waiting May Be Over). Now the air is filled with roaring earth movers, jack hammers, and concrete mixers as the work is progressing for the new educational experience at the San Diego Zoo’s Conrad Prebys Polar Bear Plunge.

Our cool trio is having a great time watching all the commotion. We think Kalluk wants to know why he can’t have a hard hat to wear, and Tatqiq would like them to all stop working and play with her at the glass. Chinook poses by the rock playing hard to get when she lures the contractors over for a peek.
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Hey, did you hear that the San Diego Zoo’s Backstage Pass program has “earned its stripes”? That’s right! Our family now includes a zebra; her name is Zahari. We usually just call her Zari. She is a beautiful little Grant’s zebra, which is the smallest of the plains zebra species. When full grown, Zari should be around 48 inches tall (1.2 meters) at the withers and close to 500 pounds (226 kilograms). But right now she is still a youngster at only 16 months old and does not quite tip the scale at 400 pounds (184 kilograms).
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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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On October 3, 2009, Msholo, an African elephant from the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida, arrived to join the current herd at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. Msholo is one of the 11 elephants rescued from a scheduled cull in Africa’s Swaziland in 2003. He came from the Hlane Game Reserve in Swaziland; other elephants from that same reserve now living here at the Wild Animal Park are Swazi, Umoya, and Umngani.
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Living with a porcupine and two tortoises in a hotel room in Manhattan is indeed as unique as it sounds, if for no other reason than everyone seems to be on a different sleep schedule! (Read Rick’s previous post, Packing for a Porcupine’s Flight.) Sure, there is plenty of “city noise” that comes through the closed windows, but honestly I can sleep through most of that, sirens, honking, and all. However, in-the-room noise is another story…
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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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