What a wild time he had this morning! He was so excited by the new structures and scents in his enclosure. His exuberance was palpable. He seemed thrilled to be back home. I had trouble keeping up with him with our cameras!

If you missed it, check with the timelapse feature of the Panda Cam. There is nothing like watching a young panda run, roll, and climb all over the place, just for the heck of it!

Suzanne Hall is the panda research technician for the San Diego Zoo’s Office of Giant Panda Conservation.

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Among placental mammals (as different from marsupials like the koala), the panda infant is much closer to the altricial end of the development scale, having a fetal growth period of only about two months at the end of a pregnancy averaging 4 1/2 months in duration.
Denning provides the protective environment needed by species that produce altricial young.

Given this mandatory den phase for pandas, is there a way to advance the time of public viewing? We think so. Our present arrangement has the birth den separated from the exhibit area, and requires cubs to
negotiate a long tunnel to move from one to the other. The main exhibit does have a birth den within the small nursery building through which our pandas travel to the viewing area. In future years, we will explore
the possibility of sharing glimpses of newborn cubs with the public as early as two months of age; that is, as soon as the mother begins to carry them out of the exhibit den.

Don Lindburg is the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Team leader.

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When Hodari was first discovered by the keepers they took a small drop of his blood and tested it on a machine to get a blood glucose reading. It is a similar process that diabetics use to test their blood sugar. His blood glucose was 142, which is within the normal range. A reading below 70 would be cause for concern, and an indication that keeper intervention might be needed. Since Hodari’s blood sugar was normal, the keepers knew he had already taken in nourishment, and most likely would continue to do so.

The keepers do not do a 24-hour baby watch on the giraffes as they generally do not have complications with the birthing process. Labor for giraffes typically lasts about ½ hour to 1 hour, and within one hour of birth, the baby is already standing up and hopefully nursing from its mother.

Hodari and his mom Bahati will be on exhibit typically from 9 a.m. to possibly as late as 2 p.m. on the weekdays. They are separated from the rest of the herd to give them a little privacy and so keepers can be sure Bahati is getting enough food. However, the area in which they’re on exhibit is also the area where the public can feed the giraffes at 12 p.m. on weekends. Therefore, they may come off exhibit as early as noon on weekends. So come to the Zoo early so you can get a good long look at our new “little” cutie.

Sunni Robertson is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

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First and foremost, Su Lin must be able to locomote from her den to the exhibit area and back. We operate on a minimum intervention protocol; therefore, we do not want to be her legs and carry her back and forth. At present, Su Lin is able to sit up, and has been trying to stand up, but it will take a while before her hind legs are strong enough for her to move around on her own. We all know that our own infants do not one day simply stand up and start walking.

Another factor is an indication that Bai Yun is ready to end the den phase of rearing, and is therefore comfortable with having Su Lin by her side in the exhibit area. Bai Yun will signal her intentions by grasping the cub’s neck fur in her mouth and carrying Su Lin out of the den. She is already beginning to do this, but not on a regular basis.

NEWS FLASH…..I have just this minute been informed that mother and cub are outdoors, in our classroom exhibit! Bai Yun carried Su Lin into the tunnel which connects den to exhibit, then went on by herself. Shortly, Su Lin stood up on all fours and WALKED out through the tunnel and joined her mother in the exhibit area! Her gait was slow and wobbly, but the important point is that she can walk. It seems that this came down to a matter of having traction. We had noticed that there was quite a bit of slipping and sliding around on the smooth den floor, so today our keepers “roughed up” the floor with the intent of making it easier for Su Lin to stand. Once she reached the grassy cover in the exhibit, traction was no problem. We will be monitoring this new pattern of behavior over the next few days in order to come up with a date for first public viewing.

Don Lindburg is the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Team leader.

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You may know that female pandas come into estrus once a year in the spring for breeding, which occurs during a short window of 24 to 72 hours. If all goes well, the female will become pregnant and will not mate again for another two years as she raises her cub. But what if she doesn’t get pregnant?

Before Gao Gao came to us, we didn’t have much breeding success. Hua Mei, the success story everyone has heard about, was the result of artificial insemination (AI). What you may not have heard about was the many breeding seasons in which we hoped for a mating that didn’t occur, and the AI’s that were unsuccessful. As a result, come fall of many years, Bai Yun didn’t have a cub to raise.

Bai Yun developed a fairly typical pattern in the fall in which her energy levels seemed to increase. She began pacing about her enclosures, which alarmed us at first. Why was she pacing? Was she unhappy? Interestingly, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to stop this behavior. Predictably, we saw it each year. We had heard reports of some females having a “fall estrus.” Perhaps this was what Bai Yun was experiencing. During spring estrus, Bai Yun wanders a lot and scent marks a good deal. This fall behavior pattern seemed like a muted version of her spring activity.

Not long ago, a female at a Japanese zoo had a fall estrus, and their staff opted to put the male in with her… and they bred! Even more surprising to us all was that she then went on to have offspring as a result of that breeding. So the fall estrus appears to be a real, physiological phenomenon and not just a fluke we observed in Bai Yun.

That brings me back to Gao Gao. Why is he wandering? Although he doesn’t experience “estrus,” he certainly undergoes some changes in the spring breeding season: most notably, his testes increase in size. Perhaps in the fall he experiences some sort of physiological shift too, one that would prepare him for a possible encounter with a female who is experiencing a fall estrus? We never saw this kind of pattern with Shi Shi, but then again, Shi Shi never showed us much drive to breed. Gao Gao undoubtedly is more motivated in this arena.

There is no hope that we will find out soon if a fall mating is possible between Gao Gao and Bai Yun. Our female is very busy raising Su Lin, and we would never jeopardize the health of this cub in order to test this theory. However, if some spring breeding season should pass without a pregnancy in Bai Yun, we can wonder if perhaps all is not lost. And if the opportunity presents itself, perhaps…

Suzanne Hall is the panda research technician for the San Diego Zoo’s Office of Giant Panda Conservation.

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Clouded leopards are one of the many endangered animal species the San Diego Zoo is known for exhibiting. There are two additional clouded leopard females that live in the Zoo’s new Monkey Trails and Forest Tales exhibit. The girls, as we fondly call them, are two of the most beautiful leopards in the world. They are frequently featured in the noon show at the Hunte Amphitheater on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays.

Kya and Kilat love stage work because they have the opportunity to practice their long jumps. Another activity they are fond of is walking through the stadium early in the morning. The surrounding hillsides serve as our leopards’ playground. Our walks are directed by their interest and curiosity. Occasionally we will hike the steep hills behind our compound and end up on Horn & Hoof Mesa. The girls will climb different trees just to watch the pedestrians and busses go by. If it weren’t for their human companions on the other end of the leashes, their presence would go completely undetected. It’s humbling to realize our five senses are not as highly developed as the clouded leopards’.

Walking these active leopards can be compared to trying to walk an acrobatic flying bird on a leash. They will run very fast up a tree, then instantly straight down the tree, up the next tree, and then launch into the air, landing in another tree further away, all within a matter of seconds. It is extremely exciting! We trainers have to be on our toes, always watching the girls’ ears and eyes. This gives us information as to their next plan of action. Most walks are filled with wonderment, amazement, and just plain old gratitude—it is a thrill to be able to share experiences with these rare leopards.

Kya has a distinctive style; she is a bouncer. She’ll stay close to the ground, and then leap high into the air like a rabbit, before she pounces on her sister, a lizard, or whatever may have moved under the leaves. Kilat, on the other hand, is the athlete of the family. She can launch herself into the air, make a u-turn and land on some other unnoticed tree, all the while keeping an eye on her sister, so Kya doesn’t take her by surprise with the playful bunny pounce. Sound like fun?

We encourage you to come by to view the Wild Ones Show at Hunte Amphitheater and enjoy these beautiful clouded leopards for yourself. Hope to see you there soon.

Maureen O. Duryee is an animal trainer at the San Diego Zoo’s Hunte Amphitheater.

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First we met a beautiful Brazilian black tarantula named Vivica. Spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks all belong to the arachnid family, which means that they have eight legs, two body parts (abdomen and cephalo-thorax) and simple eyes. Paige explained that New World tarantulas like Vivica have urticating hairs that they can eject to protect themselves against predators. The barbed hairs stick into the predators and cause irritation. We watched Vivica hunt down her lunch, too—a cricket that Paige placed in her enclosure.

The next bug we met was a New Guinea stick insect. As an insect, rather than an arachnid, she had six legs, three body parts (abdomen, thorax, and head), compound eyes, and antennae positioned on the top of her head. She was large and brown, and looked like a twig with dried leaves attached. We decided she had developed some really fabulous camouflage to help protect her in her native habitat. Luckily, the squeamishness had disappeared, because the girls were able to touch this big girl, while Paige explained that they are parthenogenic, which means they can reproduce without having to mate! Essentially, they will lay eggs that develop into clones of themselves, unless they meet a male and mate. The eggs that are laid then will have a mixture of genetic material from both the male and the female.

The last bugs we met were Madagascar hissing cockroaches! Many of the girls recognized these insects from Dr. Zoolittle shows, and were ready to reach out and touch them. We talked about the importance of scavengers and decomposers in the world wide food web, and the girls decided cockroaches weren’t too bad, after all (as long as they stay away from our kitchens!).

Bugs of all kinds have exoskeletons, which means that their skeletons are on the outside of their bodies (unlike vertebrates, which have endoskeletons), and are eaten on every continent except North America! We talked about how the fear of bugs is usually a cultural thing, that we absorb it from the people around us. And then Paige brought out some beetle larvae for us to have a look at—and eat!! “Eeeeeeww,” they all said, but most of them gave it a go. I think the cheddar cheese flavoring helped them go down, and the general consensus seemed to be that they tasted like popcorn!

Thanks, Paige, for opening our eyes, not only to the buggy world around us, but to our cultural misconceptions about these critters! They’re beautiful and fascinating!

Cindy Spiva-Evans is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

Girls In Science is a program for Roosevelt Middle School girls which creates science-based experiences with professional women at the San Diego Zoo. The program is funded through the generosity of the Wells Fargo Foundation.

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What is it that we are building? A new cave, to serve as a lair for Su Lin when she is out on exhibit. The adult pandas, too, will benefit from the cave, because they like to use caves as resting spots. If you watched closely this morning, you may have seen a new camera view: cam 25. This was a view of Gao Gao, in his on-exhibit den! He usually rests atop the den, but today chose to sleep inside… perhaps due to the rainy weather we are experiencing. He’s proof positive that our adjustments for Su Lin will be appreciated by our entire panda population.

Suzanne Hall is the panda research technician for the San Diego Zoo’s Office of Giant Panda Conservation.

View pandas on Panda Cam.
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Keepers have not had a chance to do a full exam on the baby, and so are unsure yet of the baby’s gender. However, they do know that Baby looks robust and healthy. When the baby was first discovered this morning at 4 a.m., it was already standing up next to its mother. Baby was weighed this morning and tipped the scales at 147 pounds (66 kilograms). Baby’s height is between 5’8” and 5’10” (1.76 to 1.78 meters) . Of course it goes without mentioning that the baby is extremely cute with big brown eyes and long eyelashes. Because our giraffes are in the Masai subspecies, the new baby will be given a Masai name as soon as its gender is determined.

Baby was on exhibit this morning with mom from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The giraffe keepers say you can generally expect to see the baby and mom together on exhibit during this time each day, but changes in this schedule may occur according to how mom and baby are feeling. Hopefully, Zoo guests will have a chance to personally welcome the 6th member of the herd here at the San Diego Zoo.

Sunni Robertson is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

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Our introduction to the afternoon was a Wegeforth Bowl Sea Lion Show, where the girls could watch the trainers putting different types of animals through their paces. They noticed how closely each animal focused on its trainer and how, after performing a behavior, each animal was given a treat. The trainers explained to us later that they reward the behaviors they want, and ignore the behaviors they do not want—this is called “positive reinforcement.” This approach encourages positive and rewarding relationships between the trainers and the animals that they work with, and builds trust.

After the show, the trainers brought out Jake and walked him through a training session. We watched as they worked on a new behavior—foot tapping—using a target so Jake would know where to direct his efforts. Each time he lifted his flipper toward the target, he was rewarded with a handful of fish. It was a great opportunity for the girls to see how each behavior is broken down into small steps to make it easier for the animals to learn.

When Jake finished, Nelson joined us. Nelson is a calm, older fellow, and is a great one for posing. The girls each got a chance to pose for a picture with him, but not until it was explained to them that they must follow directions. Nelson knew and trusted his trainers, but we were unknowns—if we did something he wasn’t expecting, it would scare him, and we didn’t want to do that. The girls did fabulously, and each came away with a picture of themselves, a sea lion magnet, and—most importantly!—a hand wipe!!

The trainers told us they wanted our visit to be the best of the semester. I think the girls would agree that getting smooched by a sea lion was definitely a highlight!

Cindy Spiva-Evans is an educator at the San Diego Zoo.

Girls In Science is a program for Roosevelt Middle School girls which creates science-based experiences with professional women at the San Diego Zoo. The program is funded through the generosity of the Wells Fargo Foundation.

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