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giant panda Bai Yun

852

Pandas: The Transition

By
Kathy Hawk
– March 29, 2013Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Pandas
Xiao Liwu rests against his pillow as he plays Big Boy Panda with bamboo.

Xiao Liwu rests against his pillow as he plays Big Boy Panda with bamboo.

Giant panda Bai Yun and her now 8-month-old cub, Xiao Liwu, are slowly making the transition to their new enclosure in the main viewing area of the San Diego Zoo’s Panda Trek. The restless behaviors you may have seen from Bai Yun are absolutely normal during this transition period. We keepers are aware of how the changes can affect the bears, because I’ve seen Bai Yun go through this with EACH of her cubs.

For Bai Yun, the space is not new to her, as she has lived in this enclosure for many years. However, she has a new cub to care for now, and the scent of the previous resident, Gao Gao, is still strong in that enclosure. Although Gao Gao has been her mate and is the father of this cub, that matters not at all to her. In her mind, a male is in the area, and it could mean danger for her cub. As his scent dissipates, she will settle down.

For Mr. Wu, everything is new! The main viewing enclosures give our guests a closer look at the pandas, but they are also closer to the road, so there are new sounds to get used to. The cub’s new space is about the same size as his previous one, but it is shaped differently: it is longer and not as deep. There are lots of new things for the little guy to explore, and taller trees to climb! Cubs at this age do spend a LOT of time in the tallest tree they can find; in the wild, this makes good survival sense, as they would be safe from predators while Mom foraged. Xiao Liwu doesn’t have to worry about those predators here, but the instinct to climb is still strong.

As keepers, we continue to take steps to ease this transition time. We make sure we offer bamboo that is to Bai Yun’s liking whenever possible, we add various enrichment items with each feeding, and we continue to keep the access to her bedroom open, so mother and cub can retreat off exhibit any time they want to do so. Please be patient, this phase of unrest will soon pass!

Kathy Hawk is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

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165

Pandas: When One Door Closes

By
Suzanne Hall
– August 20, 2012Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Pandas, Uncategorized

A 22-day-old cutie!

Giant panda Bai Yun has continued to lengthen her absences from the den. The primary reason for this is that she is now eating much more than she was a week ago. For her first few den departures, she would be gone only long enough to grab a drink and perhaps eliminate waste. Now she is taking time to feed herself. This morning, I watched her wolf down a pile of biscuits like nobody’s business! See below for video of the cub during this time.

Her cub has gotten used to her absences. For much of the time Bai Yun is out, the youngster will rest in the den or move about gently on the floor, croaking quietly. No more flailing and screaming while Momma is away. While Bai Yun ate biscuits today, the cub did emit a few squawks, a vocalization of higher intensity than croaks. Despite this, our girl continued to feed. Clearly, she was unconcerned about a few complaints from the cub.

Keepers have begun to test interactions with Bai Yun at the gate of her sun room. When she is out feeding, the keeper approaches the mesh of the door and gently calls to her. Bai Yun can choose to interact or not. If she does, the keeper hand feeds her with a steady drip of apples and carrots. The object is to see how long Bai Yun is comfortable focusing on the keeper. It also demonstrates to us that Bai Yun is emerging from the solitude of her den world and is ready to move toward a more regular husbandry routine.

Once Bai Yun appears comfortable with these interactions, the next step is to close the door between her bedroom and sun room, effectively limiting her access to the den. Today I watched as one keeper held her attention at the door while another slowly inched the door closed. Bai Yun glanced at the door as it shut but returned her focus to the keeper and her treats. The door remained closed for two minutes and was then opened again. Our girl did great, staying calm and relaxed through the whole experience. In fact, even though the door was open to her, Bai Yun remained in the sun room for a few minutes more before returning to the den.

Once the keepers are able to keep Bai Yun calm and relaxed for 5 to 10 minutes, we will be ready for our first cub exam. As one keeper holds Bai Yun in the sun room with treats, another keeper will enter the bedroom through a different door and retrieve the cub from the den. The first few exams will be very brief, lasting only a few minutes. This will ensure that we can ease both mother and cub into the regular pattern of cub exams that will occur for the next year of this youngster’s life.

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Read her previous post, Pandas: You Asked, We Answer.

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82

Getting to Know You, Again

By
Suzanne Hall
– March 13, 2012Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Conservation, Conservation at the Zoo, Pandas, Uncategorized

Bai Yun's not interested in food these days!

Giant panda Bai Yun continues to march through estrus. Her rate of scent marking has increased from its baseline of roughly .08 bouts per hour to a whopping 43 bouts per hour this morning. She is walking through water quite a bit, a behavior that likely aids in scent dispersal, as her drippy fur leaves a trail of wet odor while she motors about. She continues to ignore her bamboo and even spit yams back at the keepers during a hearing study trial today. She’s fussy, and squirmy, and acting totally normal for a female in estrus.

On the physiological front, she has also given signs of her status. Her genitalia have enlarged in size and changed color. Swabs of her reproductive tract indicate that its composition of cells is changing in a manner consistent with an approaching breeding window. We are running hormone samples when we can get them, but so far today Bai Yun hasn’t given us enough urine to submit something to our lab.

We were thinking we might need to open the howdy gate between our adults in a few days, in anticipation of a breeding window. However, this morning Bai Yun could hear Gao Gao bleating on the other side of the wall between them. She was very attentive to his calls, and she even bleated back several times. It’s unusual for her to be bleating already, her “advertising stage,” remember? She should be silently marking. But no, she was clearly telling us this morning that she was ready to get reacquainted with her mate.

In response, this afternoon we opened the howdy gate for visual access. Gao Gao, as anticipated, was happy to check out the view, and several times he quietly approached while Bai Yun was nearby. For her part, our matriarch sat in close proximity to the gate for the better part of half an hour. She sent him mixed signals: a chirp (which says “come hither”) followed by a bark (which means “stay away”). Sometimes she sat still looking at him; sometimes, she charged the gate. Back and forth she went between the vocalizations. When she chirped, Gao Gao would stay close, sniffing at her and the gate. When she barked, he would leave, but only for a little while. He knows not to be gone too long.

In the coming days, Bai Yun’s barks and ambivalence will give way to more solicitous behavior. Gao Gao will help us keep track of her change of status with his behavior. Follow along on the Panda Cam, and see if you can see that change yourself. We’re looking for rear-present, tail-up behavior on her part. With him, we are looking for a consistent presence at the gate, even pulling at the gate when she is near. When she starts backing into that gate with her tail raised, you’ll know it’s time.

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Read her previous post, Who You Calling Old?

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43

Who You Calling Old?

By
Suzanne Hall
– March 12, 2012Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Conservation, Conservation at the Zoo, Pandas, Uncategorized

Bai Yun was more interested in eating a few months ago.

Giant panda Bai Yun is getting along in years, now 20 years old and on the tail-end of the known breeding spectrum for giant pandas. We’ve been telling you for some time that we don’t know what effect her age might have on the ability for her to breed and produce a cub in 2012. Apparently, Bai Yun did not get the uncertainty memo, because she is now showing strong signs of estrus.

For a few weeks, she has been off her regular bamboo-feeding pattern. In the last few days, her bamboo consumption has dropped precipitously. In addition, she has kicked into high gear with scent marking and restless locomotion. When I observed her this morning, she was scent marking at a rate of once per minute when awake. Considering that a typical non-estrus day might have one or two scent marks in 24 hours, this is a pretty significant increase.

Our research on the typical behavioral expression of estrus has shown that a female panda begins by increasing her rate of scent marking and then decelerates marking before becoming vocal. That is to say: first she focuses on laying down scent along her wandering path to advertise her condition to males that might wander across her home range. Then, when she is ready to mate, she begins to call the male(s), which start tracking her closely once they read her chemical messages.

I didn’t hear any vocalizations from Bai Yun this morning, but that isn’t surprising. She’s still in the advertising stage. You can see her in relatively constant motion throughout the day as she traverses her exhibit laying down scent. One byproduct: with all her restless energy and decrease in feeding, we can expect to see a slight decrease in her weight over the next few weeks. Not to worry: after her hormones settle back down, she will focus on packing on the pounds she loses during estrus.

A note about timing: Bai Yun hasn’t had a breeding date in March since 2003. However, she is clearly on track to peak this month. We are still not certain we will accomplish a breeding with our older pair, but I can say that even Gao Gao seems ready to go, with increased scent marking and restlessness characteristic of a male in rut. All signs point to a likely pairing, and well before April.

So Bai Yun is pushing the boundaries. Although her behavior thus far doesn’t guarantee a breeding or a pregnancy or a live birth, the age factor hasn’t stopped her from having a strong, early estrus. Perhaps her long years of great nutritional and veterinary care are paying off. Is Bai Yun younger than her calendar years? Who can say? Cast your bets.

Just don’t call her old.

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Read her previous post, Pandas Play Peek-a-boo.

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33

Pandamonium

By
Katherine
– October 20, 2011Posted in: Animals and Plants, Bears, More, Pandas, Zoo InternQuest

Bai Yun inhales a tantalizing scent.

Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest blog. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

At the San Diego Zoo, there is one animal that has always stolen the show – the giant panda.  People from all over the world are infatuated with the pandas at the San Diego Zoo, and we got the chance to get a behind-the-scenes view of all the “panda-monium.”

We met with Suzanne Hall, a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, for a tour of the Giant Panda Research Station.

If you’ve ever been to the Zoo, you’ve probably passed by the Panda Research Station billions of times and never thought of what goes on inside, but believe me, a lot does.  It takes a lot of educated and passionate people to conserve a species, and Ms. Hall is the epitome of a passionate individual who strives for change. When asked to describe her job, she said, “We are the science of saving species” and after telling us all about her job, there was no denying it.

Ms. Hall’s focus is on bears and their specific behaviors. From observing animals in their natural environment to writing blogs about the animals, Ms. Hall is incredibly invested in her job.  A big part of her job revolves around the study of animals’ behaviors and recording them and then applying her knowledge. So we could experience a day in the life of a research technician, Ms. Hall gave us a small ethogram (a table of different types of behaviors) allowing us to see what tools she and her colleagues work with. She showed us a video of Keesha, a sloth bear, and asked us to record what we saw based on the previously given ethogram codes. We only watched and recorded behaviors from a two-minute video, which is miniscule compared to the hours that research technicians spend observing animals. I really enjoyed observing animals, and it was exciting to see what a day in the life of a research technician is like.

Right now, Ms. Hall is focusing on sun bears and educated us about the challenges they face, as well as the steps the Institute is taking to help them.  According to Ms. Hall, sun bears are incredibly likely to go extinct due to the recent decline of their habitat by 30 percent.  Researchers have been studying sun bear cub behaviors at the San Diego Zoo and hope to compare their observations to orphaned sun bears in Borneo. The goal of this research is to provide some insight on the behavior and survival of orphans in the wild. It’s also important to have animals in managed-care facilities so there is a self-sustaining breeding population in the case that something happens to the animals in the wild. These animals play a crucial role in educating visitors about the species and why they are so important to the environment. They also allow for research to be conducted to aid a population in the wild.

To learn more about her job, Ms. Hall gave us an exclusive tour of the Giant Panda Research Station. She spends most of her time with the animals, but when she’s not there, she is writing blog posts as well. She led us through the building and to the main food source for the pandas, the bamboo refrigerator. Most of the bamboo fed to the pandas is grown on Zoo and Safari Park grounds, and considering the size of the bamboo refrigerator, that’s a lot!

After learning so much about pandas, we went into the exhibit viewing area to observe and learn about the specific pandas. One of the pandas, Bai Yun, has been with the Zoo since 1996! Ms. Hall talked to us about how all the Zoo animals are given enrichment objects to stimulate natural behaviors. Researchers are able to identify which objects the animal favors, as well as observe how they interact with the objects. Bai Yun’s favorite enrichment items include kitchen spices and perfumes. She prefers pumpkin pie spice and Polo cologne, and she actually covers herself with it!

It was really exciting to be able to experience a completely different side of the pandas by understanding what methods are being employed to study their behavior, as well as talking to a professional about her job. From now on I’ll never view the panda exhibit the same way!

Katherine, Real World Team (week 2)

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117

Bai Yun: Hero Mother

By
Suzanne Hall
– August 30, 2011Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Conservation, Conservation at the Zoo, Pandas, Uncategorized

Bai Yun rubs fragrance on her face.

As you know, we have watched giant panda Bai Yun closely over the last few months to see how she progressed throughout this birthing season. This effort involved keepers recording daily information about changes to her eating habits, behavior, and physiology. It involved San Diego Zoo veterinarians, who performed several ultrasounds a week to document the changes in Bai Yun’s uterus. It involved our reproductive physiologists, who monitored her hormone changes and used thermal imaging to assess the heat profiles of her abdomen. And it involved behavior researchers assessing the daily check sheets and watching time-lapse video of her denning activities.

In the end, our Panda Team has come to the conclusion that Bai Yun will not be giving birth this year.

We did see some positive signs in July, when there was evidence of uterine changes via ultrasound, and Bai Yun slowed down and left large portions of her daily feed untouched. She started using the den and built a small nest. As time wore on, we were not able to visualize a fetus or fetal heartbeat, and this left us to wonder: Was there a fetus in there somewhere that we just weren’t able to capture on ultrasound? Or was there a pregnancy somehow thwarted before it even got going?

At this point, Bai Yun’s hormones have returned to baseline. Her uterus is declining from its swollen state. Her appetite is on the increase, and her time spent in the den has become minimal. She will obviously not be giving birth this year. And we will never really know why. Bai Yun is, after all, on the outside edge of the range of known breeding ages for female pandas. Perhaps she is done, for good, and is physiologically ready to experience “maternal retirement.” Or perhaps her body simply needed to take a year off. Either way, we are okay with that.

In the next few days, you can expect to see Bai Yun given more opportunities to roam the area as she chooses. For the moment, she hasn’t seemed to want to stretch her legs very much, but we know that will change soon. She will want to climb trees and eat for hours and will become more responsive to the keepers’ attempts to shift her. Look for her atop the climbing structure in the north exhibit, or drinking from the pond in that yard, in the next week or so.

What’s in store for Bai Yun? In the short term, cub or no cub, you can be sure that our staff will continue to dote on her and meet all of her needs. She still is, after all, our own “hero mother.”

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician for the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research. Read her previous post, Panda Pregnancy: Detection.

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20

Bai Yun’s Changing Moods

By
Anastasia Horning
– April 13, 2011Posted in: Animal Stories, Animals and Plants, Bears, Pandas, Uncategorized

Yun Zi: A happy result of Bai Yun's last mood swing season!

The San Diego Zoo is full of the promise of spring, and our female giant panda Bai Yun is dealing with changing hormone levels. Bai Yun really doesn’t have a “normal” day right now, and there is no set schedule to her activities or direct reason for it! There are days when Bai Yun is peacefully sleeping  and really doesn’t want to do anything, days when she eats non-stop and can’t seem to get enough of her bamboo, and days where she doesn’t seem to know what she wants and doesn’t want anyone to bother her.

The scent marking and different moods she presents to her audience also fluctuate with those days. During this time we do our best to observe those behaviors, and our giant panda research team has this down to a science. However “off” she might be on some days, she has been fantastic at letting our reproductive physiologist and vets collect vaginal swabs, and she has been great at supplying urine samples for our keepers to collect. Often when I talk to our guests about how much we do during Bai Yun’s breeding season, they laugh and can’t believe that we go do so much for a “bear.” Smiling in return, I remind them how successful we’ve been at not only breeding our bears but understanding their cycles and knowing their timeline.

Yes, it’s a lot of work, and some days our keepers are running around getting other work done and can’t always watch the bears as often as they’d like to do. The great thing about our team at the Giant Panda Research Station is that we panda narrators help where we can, even if it’s something as simple as watching how long the pandas eat or counting how many times they scent mark in an hour.

We will do our best to keep you all updated on our progress with the bears, but we can’t offer an exact date of when or if they will breed. There are times where they surprise us as well!

Anastasia Horning is a panda narrator at the Zoo. Read her previous post, Gao Gao Gets Ready.

 

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