Jumanji, who loves a challenge, wasted no time in gathering as many as he could find, collecting all of them. Using his nimble fingers and tongue, he scooped out the peanut butter then discarded the Kongs in search for more. Jumanji’s little sister, Mudheblu (pronounced “moody blue”) quickly picked up a Kong and used her tiny fingers and hands to reach further in and gather what her brother could not reach. The rest of the bonobos spent the morning searching for fun little treasures of peanut butter on their favorite swings and trees. The bonobos were excited about the special treat and fun game!

Rachael Shay is a special events coordinator for the Zoological Society of San Diego.

Read Rachael’s blog about the cheetah cubs and their new toys.

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Kidomo’s keepers have been working very closely with him ever since his birth on February 22. They have been getting him used to walking through the chute in the okapi barn, which is where medical procedures can be done without using any anesthesia. For example, Kelle had an ultrasound done in the chute so that the veterinarians and keepers could see how Kidomo was doing before he was born! There is also a scale set up in the chute to take monthly weights on all of the okapis. Kidomo’s most recent weight was 108 pounds (49 kilograms). What a big boy he has become!

If weather permits, Kidomo will be spending time out on exhibit from noon until 2 p.m. daily. Be sure to stop by and see our youngster frolic around his new home!

Bridget Mulholland is a senior mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Read about Kidomo’s birth in Bridget’s blog: An Okapi is Born!

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There are four positions in which a bear can scent mark: the squat, the reverse, the leg-cock, and the handstand. I have listed these in order of increasing dominance. The squat position, in which the bear rubs its anogenital gland along the ground by adopting a sitting posture and using a rocking, back-and-forth motion, is commonly observed in females and youngsters. The reverse, in which a bear backs into a substrate such as a tree or rock and rubs the gland in an up-and-down motion, getting the scent higher off the ground than a squat. It’s observed in some females (Hua Mei used this posture sometimes) but is most common in males. The leg-cock, a higher order position usually reserved for males, looks much like a reverse but the bear lifts one hind leg off the ground to get the gland even higher on the tree. Finally, the handstand scent mark (demonstrated by Gao Gao in the image above) involves the bear getting both back legs off the ground to mark high up on a vertical substrate like a tree. As far as I am aware, the handstand has only been observed in some males.

Each scent mark can be performed simply by rubbing the gland under the tail against the substrate. Alternatively, the bear can choose to include urine in the mark. In the squat position, the females deposit urine frequently. When they are in estrus, the quantity of urine left with each mark often increases. This may be because the window for optimal breeding is so short that urine is the best way to communicate the female’s rapidly changing hormonal status… and metabolites in urine will offer males a more up-to-date message about the female’s status than can the scent gland material. Males can also urinate while marking, and do so frequently in the handstand position, in which marking high on the tree may make it difficult to actually make contact with the scent gland.

This gland, which is predominately a bunch of puffy, folded skin, exudes a sticky, pungent odor that is the basis for the chemical message. The message left by each panda is unique, as the quantities of metabolites in the gland material are different from animal to animal. We think this allows the bears to identify individuals. One interesting anecdote: years back, we gave Bai Yun small wooden boards each day, laden with the scent of a bear in Wolong. She was helping us develop a protocol for a new study we wanted to conduct in Wolong. She showed a waning response to the boards as days went by, until one day when she cued in on a board and was interested in it for a long time. She picked up that board, sniffed and sniffed it, and even licked it repeatedly. I was surprised at her sudden spike in interest. When I looked back over the day I realized that on that morning I had given her scent from Dong Dong, Bai Yun’s own mother. Was there something interesting in Dong Dong’s scent on the day we had collected it? Or did the scent provoke a moment of fond remembrance from Bai Yun? Only Bai Yun knows for sure.

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

View pandas on Panda Cam.

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Obviously noticing the large question mark I had over my head, Dr. Burns informed me that a dusky pademelon is a type of marsupial, and can also be referred to as a southern scrub wallaby. I learned something new and hadn’t even been at work ten minutes! Now equipped with this knowledge, I was able to help locate the medical record (well, I have to admit, the good doctor found it first).

With over 3,000 animals’ medical records to sort through, having a good system in which to locate them is essential. Most of the people I work with have been employed at the Wild Animal Park for many years, and their knowledge and experience has been the catalyst for the creation of our unique record-keeping system, as well as the wonderful facility we treat our animals in. Here at HVMC, our medical records are filed first by species, then by common name, and finally by an accession number that is assigned as animals are born, hatched, or moved into the collection. Many of our animals also have “house” names, and this unusual, furry kid goes by the name “Sport.”

An hour or so later, one of our registered veterinary technicians called me into the small animal treatment room, so I could watch while she and Dr. Burns delicately treated Sport’s wound, and his trainer helped with positioning. After the brief procedure, he was released back to his home and Park family. As it turned out, his “owie” was very minor, and an opportunistic exam (as well as his gentle demeanor!) revealed that he is a happy, healthy wallaby.

As I always do when the opportunity arises, I felt so fortunate to be able to meet another of our exotic animals, and watch as Dr. Burns and the other staff members demonstrated their amazing sensitivity. Sport was very cooperative and I could see that he felt safe and cared for. What a joy this was to witness!

Valerie Stoddard is the senior administrative assistant at the Wild Animal Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center.

Here’s information about tours of the HVMC.

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We got an early start and ate our breakfasts on the bus. The nasty weather slowly cleared the further north we traveled, and by the time we reached L.A., the sun had poked its head through the clouds. Our entire morning was spent at the Tar Pits, touring around, speaking with a docent, and of course, hitting the gift shops. We learned that the Tar Pits don’t actually contain tar, which is a residue from woody material processing, but asphalt, which is a naturally occurring substance often found near oil deposits. The majority of the bones extracted from the pits are from animals that were trapped there between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago—the last Ice Age.

Many of the animals exhibited in the Page Museum have modern-day relatives, but one that doesn’t is the saber-toothed cat. Often called tigers, which they aren’t, the saber-toothed cat is classified in a separate group from true cats. Its lack of a long tail and a few other physical characteristics make it more closely related to a bobcat than to a tiger or a lion, despite its large size.

We learned, too, that the remnants we were seeing were actual bones, rather than fossils, which are made of stone. The bones are all darkly colored from the asphalt staining, but are extremely well preserved. We could see injuries that had healed, rodent gnaw marks, and even “pit wear” which is caused by the bones rubbing against one another while settling into the asphalt. The collection on display was quite impressive, and our docent was great at pointing out things the casual observer might not pick up.

When we had finished up at the Pits, we set out for a quick walk up to the Los Angeles Farmers’ Market, where we split into small groups and wandered around. The ride home was long, but warm and cozy, and we arrived back in San Diego tired out and ready for bed!

Thanks to Kathy Myers of the Zoo’s Education Department for handling all of the scheduling and logistics—we couldn’t have done it without her!

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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As you might imagine, there are many similarities between animal and human laboratory work, but there are vast differences as well. Some of the most complicated aspects are the large number of exotic animal species that exist, and the fact that, unlike their human counterparts, there are very few resources available from which to provide normal ranges for comparison and standardization of these species. Because of the many variations in cell structures and parasites, the laboratory technicians are, in effect, entering uncharted territory each time a sample is processed and examined.

That uncharted territory also happens to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of their job, according to Laura Keener, clinical laboratory manager for the Zoological Society of San Diego, and HVMC senior laboratory technicians, Donna Shephard and Debbie Fisher. For them, every day brings exploration and discovery, and the ability to provide valuable information to veterinarians in order to care for the animals at the Wild Animal Park, all 3,000 or more of them! While being a laboratory technician for exotic animals is certainly a demanding career, it is also very rewarding.

A not-so-common procedure for the laboratory technicians occurred two weeks ago when six lesser spot-nosed guenons were brought to the HVMC’s specially constructed primate quarantine facility after arriving from Singapore. Any time an animal enters the hospital for quarantine purposes, it must be examined and have blood and fecal samples taken to evaluate for the presence of any disease or parasites. Blood is also taken to harvest serum (the clear, yellow fluid portion of the blood that remains after coagulation and removal of the red blood cells by centrifugation) for storage or “banking.” Banked serum is stored for future use if needed for retrospective studies in the event of a disease occurrence.

The process for examining primates in this extremely protective environment is very complex. Standard precautions for primates in international quarantine require the laboratory technicians to work within a special bio-safety “hood” (a metal “box” with a protective plexiglass door in which the technicians process the primate samples, pictured at right), and wear head-to-toe protection, including a custom-fitted mask that covers the mouth and nose. A face shield and two pairs of gloves are also used for full protection as required by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). These precautions are imposed by the CDC for the protection of the primates and those who care for them, though there is an extremely low risk of any zoonotic disease transmission.

The personal protective equipment also presents a very unique situation for our laboratory technicians: it is very awkward to see with the plastic shield between their eyes and the lenses of the microscope! Additionally, the full-body suits they must wear are very hot and uncomfortable, and it can take hours to process six sets of primate samples. Our hospital laboratory technicians were up to the task, however, with nearly 45 years of experience between the two of them!

The Zoological Society’s Clinical Pathology Laboratories in the Pathology Division of CRES remains one of the largest laboratories of any zoo in existence today. In addition to HVMC’s two senior laboratory technicians, the Zoo laboratory, which is also managed by Laura Keener, employs four technicians. The importance of these laboratory technicians’ work to the care and research of the animals we are responsible for cannot be overstated, and the work that Debbie and Donna do for us each day at Harter Veterinary Medical Center is something we are all very proud of; they are consummate medical professionals. Thank you, ladies!

Valerie Stoddard is the senior administrative assistant at the Wild Animal Park’s Harter Veterinary Medical Center.

More of Valerie’s blogs about the HVMC can be found in the “Animal Stories” category.

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JoAnne has worked for the San Diego Zoo for 17 years in various incarnations, but has focused primarily on animal husbandry training and enrichment. The GIS were fortunate to be able to watch JoAnne’s training session with Mei Sheng, the Zoo’s 2-year old male panda (and big brother of Su Lin). She explained the process of capturing behaviors and rewarding the ones she wants. Mei Sheng has learned that a click, called a bridge, means “good job” and is quickly followed by a food reward. He is such a smart cookie, in fact, that he was doing all sorts of things for JoAnne, even when she wasn’t asking for those specific behaviors!

We followed up the panda training session with a quick slide show and a discussion about training in general, and polar bears more specifically. Training animals for husbandry purposes helps to lessen their stress when certain procedures (such as weighing them, looking at their teeth, or drawing their blood) need to occur. When animals are trained for these procedures, rather than anesthetized, they are much less stressed each time an exam takes place, and are much healthier and happier as a result.

JoAnne and the polar bear keepers have been asked to participate in a study in hopes of learning what precisely polar bears can hear. In order to find this out, they first had to figure out how to rig a polar bear “head set” and how to ascertain whether or not the polar bears could hear each sound that was presented to them. After some very creative construction and teaching the polar bears to stick out their tongues, they are ready to get started. The bears will need to be exposed to upwards of 15,000 different tones before we will have a rough idea as to their hearing abilities. All four of the Zoo’s polar bears will participate in the study, as will the polar bears from SeaWorld San Diego.

A big thanks to JoAnne and senior keeper Kathy Hawk for taking time out of their days to accommodate our group of future researchers! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

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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I am very pleased to let everyone know she is doing great–really, couldn’t be better! Katie was welcomed by Sugar Plum, a 29-year-old female miniature horse that has been with us for a long time, and by our little “stud,” 10-year-old Elmo, also a miniature.

Elmo was quick to welcome the new girl. He was excited and, oh so very friendly (wink, wink–I think a little too friendly) to which Katie was quick to inform him (using one or two hooves) that her purpose here is to be loved, admired, and petted by all the children that come to visit every day. Elmo learned quickly.

All three of our horses are walked daily, usually in the morning. If you see us, please come and say hello. We may not always be able to stop; sometimes the horses feel the need to continue trotting. So, if I can’t stop please do not take it personally!

Katie was not used to stopping for children to pet her in the beginning, but she quickly adjusted. She lets everyone touch and photograph her while staying cool and calm. We’re so proud of her. Please stop by soon–we’d love to see you!!

Lety Cotero is an exhibit attendant/keeper at the San Diego Zoo’s Children’s Zoo.

Read Lety’s blog about Sugar Plum and Elmo.

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Chukai has also been eating a lot of solid food, even though he continues to nurse for long periods of time every day. Right now, his favorite food items are bananas, apples, yams, and ficus browse, but he also eats some of Rose’s main diet of alfalfa pellets and hay. Our young tapir still loves to swim in the pool in his Tiger River enclosure and he definitely spends more time in it than Rose. We will often hear him vocalizing to his mom while he swims if she isn’t in sight. I guess he’s just letting her know that he’s doing okay!

Bridget Mulholland is a senior mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Read Bridget’s other blogs about Chukai: A Tapir is Born and Tapir Calf Takes the Plunge.

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One major milestone for any panda cub is the transition from feeding exclusively on milk to feeding on bamboo. For many months now Su Lin has been mouthing and chewing various parts of the bamboo that is provided to her mother. In the early going, she was not actually consuming this food, but rather was practicing bamboo handling techniques that would later enable her to process it more efficiently. She currently chews the bamboo, probably ingesting the juice produced when the leaves are worked between her little teeth, but ultimately she is spitting out the remnants rather than ingesting them. No bamboo stools have been found by keepers to indicate she has eaten bamboo when no one is looking; in fact, Bai Yun is doing her job as a protective momma very well, since no baby stools of any kind have been found recently! Hua Mei didn’t begin eating bamboo until her 11th month, while Mei Sheng started in his 12th month. We still have a little time before we would expect Su Lin to be eating bamboo.

Another major milestone in a panda cub’s life is the onset of scent marking. The panda cub is able to use its nose for olfactory investigation almost from birth, but scent marking develops when the cub is physically capable of lifting its tail and rubbing against a substrate. Su Lin has been seen scent marking in the last few weeks. She’s right on schedule when compared with Hua Mei, who was first observed marking in her 8th month. Mei Sheng didn’t mark until a few months later. Interestingly, all three cubs first marked in the squat position, placing their scent gland down on a substrate while in a seated position.

By comparing Su Lin to her two siblings, and our large database of information about cubs in Wolong, we will better understand the range of normal behavior and developmental milestones for all panda cubs. You can be sure that we will keep watching Su Lin to assess her development. One thing I have learned over the last several months: I know you will be watching, too!

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

Get the latest updates on Su Lin on our Panda News page.

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