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Sijia Adorable Panda Couldn't Help Herself, Excited About the New Snow

VIDEO - Pandamodium

Tian Tian knows how to have fun...

PANDAS - Updates From the San Diego Zoo

"Panda Zhen Zhen" by Megan Owen, San Diego Zoo Blog 2/14/2013

Zhen Zhen is now 5 1/2 years old, and our latest news from China indicates that she is doing very well!  The third cub of Bai Yun and Gao, we’ve just learned that she was the first female to come into estrous this year in BiFengXia, and that she bred with two males, Lu Lu and Yuan Yuan.  Zhen Zhen and her big sister, Su Lin, moved to China in September 2010 to be a part of the panda breeding program there.

While we can’t tell at this point whether or not these breeding encounters were successful (i.e., will result in a pregnancy), all reports suggest that her behavior was perfect.  We are hopeful that she’ll have cubs later this summer, and we’ll keep you posted!  Congratulations to Zhen Zhen!

"A Tree for Panda Yun Zi" by Jennifer Becerra, San Diego Zoo Blog 2/15/2013

It’s official!  We are going to start building Yun Zi’s artificial tree very soon!  We have talked to our wonderful contractors and have decided on its design and placement.  It is going to look like a large bonsai tree and will be around 15 feet (4.5 meters) tall.  We are very excited and thankful for the donations from all the panda fans that went into this!  Our Horticulture Team added a new Chinese elm tree in Yun Zi’s exhibit as well on Thursday, February 14.

We will be taking down Yun Zi’s current climbing structure to make room for the 6-foot (1.8 meter) base of the artificial tree.  The tree will take approximately four weeks to build on site (yes, it will be built in the exhibit!) as long as weather conditions are ideal (no rain).  As a keeper, I really enjoy exhibit renovations, and to help design something like this tree is amazing.  I am really excited to see how all the pandas will enjoy it and use it (as you know, we sometimes rotate the pandas into different exhibit areas).

There is a lot of preparation that is being done to Yun Zi’s exhibit currently, so please be patient with us and understand that he will have to be off exhibit during this entire process.  Gao Gao will remain on exhibit as long as he seems comfortable during the building phase of the tree (Gao Gao’s exhibit is right next to Yun Zi’s).  Yun Zi will be in the indoor bedrooms close to his keepers, and during the day he will have access to the outdoor habitat next to Bai Yun and Xiao Liwu’s north exhibit.  When you are visiting Mom and cub, look up in the trees and you might see Yun Zi!

SAN DIEGO ZOO - Newest Panda Has a Name

"100 Days After Birth, San Diego Panda Gets Name" by AP, ABC News, 11/13/2012

There is a new little gift at the San Diego Zoo that's going to get very big.

The zoo's youngest giant panda was officially named Xiao Liwu (ZHEE'-ow LEE'-woo), Chinese for "little gift," at a ceremony Tuesday. He is on the small side, but is strong and cooperative, said Dr. Ron Swaisgood, a member of the zoo's panda team.

The cub was born on July 29 and was named 100 days after its birth, according to Chinese zoo tradition. Officials said the cub weighs 9.2 pounds and stretches more than 23 inches long from nose to tail.

Zoo officials got 7,000 suggested names, chose their top six and put them up for a vote. More than 35,000 zoo visitors voted on names that meant Little Gift, Miracle, Raindrop, Big Ocean or Big Sea, Brave Son and Water Dragon.

Xiao Liwu's mother is Bai Yun (bye-yuhn) which means White Cloud and father Gao Gao (gow-gow), which means Tall Tall. The cub is Bai Yun's sixth. She turned 21 in July, making her the oldest giant panda known to give birth.

Through participation in a panda exchange breeding program with China, researchers "have gone from zero to 100 overnight in understanding the species," Swaisgood said. That's very beneficial for conservation because "it's hard to conserve what we do not understand."

He called the panda the world's "best loved species."

Before the program, the future of the species was bleak, he said, because the death rate exceeded the birth rate. But in 2010, "we met the 200 individuals needed to preserve the genetic diversity of the species," Swaisgood said to applause from the audience.

Swaisgood described efforts by scientists in China to track wild pandas. A wild panda will leave about 50 droppings a day, he said, and scientists can learn a lot from that, including information about DNA, hormones and diet.

Swaisgood said those taking part in the breeding program have done a good job.

"There is a feeling of hope that things are turning around for the species and it has a brighter future than it did 20 years ago," he said.

SAN DIEGO ZOO - Pandas, Bai Yun's Newest 'Cuteness'

"Panda Cub: 704 Grams" by Megan Owen, San Diego Zoo 8/23/2012

All is well!

This morning, at about 7:15, we had our first opportunity to examine Bai Yun’s newest cub. For the past week or so, Bai Yun has developed a regular habit of leaving the den to get breakfast in her sun room. Today, we took advantage of Bai Yun’s breakfast outing to get our first real look at the cub. The exam lasted only 3 minutes, but in that time our veterinarians were able to determine that the 25-day-old cub is healthy and weighs in at a robust 704 grams (24.8 ounces or 1.55 pounds). For comparison, Yun Zi weighed 1,259 grams (2.8 pounds) at 29 days (see Baby’s First Exam), Zhen Zhen weighed 1,020 grams or 2.2 pounds at 26 days, and Su Lin was 618 grams (22 ounces) at 22 days. The cub was quiet at the outset of the exam, but soon enough gave us a great display of its strong lungs!

Veterinarians were able to do a quick, yet thorough, exam of the cub’s limbs, mouth, ears, and more, and we’re happy to report that everything looks good! While it may be a few more weeks before we know what the cub’s sex is, or whether or not it has webbed toes or a spot on its tail, today was an important step in confirming that this cub has the most important quality that a panda cub can have: good health!

Bai Yun also showed us her best maternal behavior. She began eating her breakfast away from the cub, in the sun room, as usual, when the cub emitted a loud squawk during the exam. Bai Yun made it clear that she wanted to return to the den to be with the cub, so the exam was halted. Her maternal behavior continues to be exemplary and, clearly, she is doing a great job taking care of her latest cub. We are all so lucky to see this amazing mother in action!

First Exam

SAN DIEGO - From the Cute-and-Fuzzy-File, Pandas

Gao Gao the youngster

"Gao Gao Getting Big Big" by Juli Thatcher, San Diego Zoo 6/13/2012

As many of you may remember, adult panda Gao Gao has been having digestive-tract issues for the last year or so, which has led to some strange behavior. He’s had several days when he hasn’t wanted to rise in the morning and has been unresponsive to his keeper’s calls. This behavior is actually pretty common in pandas living in managed-care facilities and occurs in conjunction with the passing of a mucous stool. However, on these days when our boy was “sleeping in,” he would not pass a mucous stool. On other days, we saw lots of his “tongue flicking” behavior, which is biting his tongue and flicking it routinely.

On October 6, 2011, Gao Gao had exploratory surgery in an effort to determine the source of his discomfort (see post Gao Gao: Road to Recovery). The exploratory surgery was used to look for any obstructions that could have caused some of his discomfort. While he was under anesthesia, veterinarians were able to check out every bit of Gao, including his teeth. They discovered that his back molars were very worn down, that some existing bridgework between two of his molars needed repairing, and that one of his canines was loose. Aha! The reason for his tongue flicking and possibly the reason for his digestive issues.

If a panda is lucky enough to die of old age in the wild, the cause of its death is most often starvation. Years of eating bamboo (an extremely strong grass, remember, from which flooring and furniture is made) wear down a bear’s teeth pretty well. When a panda cannot properly break down food in its mouth, the food cannot then be properly digested. Gao is very lucky to live in a managed-care situation, where he has had the necessary dental work and has a team that can adjust his diet. As a result, of course, our poor old man has had to give up some of his favorite foods. But never fear! He’s gained some new ones.

We’ve been steaming “bamboo bread” for Gao Gao, which he receives three times a day as part of his new diet. The bread is made up of ground leaf eater biscuits, dried and ground bamboo stems and leaves, water, and a small bit of gelatin to act as an adhesive. The bread is a soft, palatable food that delivers the same nutrition that bamboo can provide. Basically, it’s easier for him to chew and digest… and boy, does he ever! Our Gao has become a bread addict. Having the bamboo bread in his diet has helped him become “Big Big,” for sure. His latest weight was 174 pounds (79 kilograms), the largest he’s been in many years!

Gao’s also getting bamboo that is smaller in diameter. We have a one-centimeter rule when making up his bamboo diet, meaning any piece that we give him has to be one centimeter in diameter or smaller. We can’t just give him tiny pieces, though. Pandas spend up to 12 hours eating, a large portion of which means stripping the outer green layer off of the bamboo. If he’s only given tiny pieces of bamboo, he doesn’t really have the opportunity to do that. So, we also take large pieces of bambusa oldhamii culm and split it into pieces that are one-centimeter wide. The culm can be any thickness, so long as it’s not too difficult for us to split (by hand, mind you). He gets 60 pieces a day, split into tiny bits by his keepers. Talk about spoiled!

Since his diet changes, Gao had a bout of passing too many mucous stools in a row. Then he had a bout of having episodes similar to those he was having prior to his surgery. We continue to tweak his diet and change the bamboo-bread recipe. We will continue to do so until it’s just right. So far, though, it seems we’re on the right track, and our old man is as sweet and handsome as he ever was.

Juli Thatcher is a senior panda keeper at the San Diego Zoo. Read her previous post, Panda Cam, Panda Trek.