My fears were completely unfounded. I learned that, conveniently, the seventh graders in the group had just finished a block covering genetics and heredity! They were in their element and understood everything our cytogenetics presenter, Suellen Charter, had to say! Suellen showed us three different karyotypes, which are photomicrographs of chromosomes arranged according to a standard classification. Real photos of real chromosomes! The girls could count them (southern white rhinos have 82, tigers have 38, and Parma wallabies have only 16) and were able to identify the X and Y sex chromosomes. One of the cool things about the tiger karyotype we looked at was that it had 39 chromosomes!! How is that possible? Well, this particular tiger, Nick, had a condition called Kleinfelder’s Syndrome, which meant he carried two X chromosomes and one Y! This opened up a fascinating discussion about why he was in fact a male, and not a female, even though he carried two X chromosomes. I was amazed how interested the girls were! (The reason, incidentally, is that one Y supercedes any number of X chromosomes to dictate gender.)

We also visited a branch of the CRES Reproductive Physiology lab that is still located at the Zoo. We were lucky to be able to meet with Dr. Barbara Durrant, the division head, and lab techs Nicole Ravida and Dianne Amodeo to learn some of the finer details of what it is that they do! The girls were able to see sperm that had been previously frozen swimming under a microscope, and discovered that, if you look verrrry carefully, you can see a dog ovum with the naked eye. The samples we looked at came from domestic dogs that had been neutered and spayed in local clinics. Rather than tossing the tissue out, the vets saved it for our lab to work with, which is much easier than using cells from animals here at the Zoo. Once freezing techniques have been worked out using the domestic dog cells, then those techniques can be used with great assurance on cells of endangered species.

We also learned about hormone tests that are run on the female sun bears to find out when they are cycling and how cells can be stained to see if they survived the freezing process. As we made our way back down the steps and out of the building, one girl turned to me and admitted, “Wow. My head is spinning, but that stuff is amazing. I’m glad we got to come here.”

Me, too.

Thanks to the entire team for an enlightening afternoon!

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.

Read more Girls In Science Weblogs.

Our four new inhabitants are young Allen’s swamp monkeys, native to the swampy forests of Zaire. Swamp monkeys love to swim and have partial webbing between their fingers and toes to assist them in the water. In the wild, they eat fruit, leaves, and insects. In Ituri Forest at the San Diego Zoo, they are given a diet of specially formulated biscuits, fruit, vegetables, greens, and insects. Keepers are introducing them to all of the enrichment toys and foods our other monkeys enjoy as well, such as peanut butter, jello, and cereal! We often use these “snacks” to scatter or hide in toys hung from tree branches, giving the animals some activities to keep busy throughout the day.

Since they are just becoming familiar with their new home, keepers are giving them limited access outside every other day. So far, they seem to really enjoy exploring their new exhibit. With the weather warming up, and their natural inclination to explore and swim, you do not want to miss a chance to catch them taking their first dip in their new home!

Nerissa Foland is a senior keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

On Friday I started trekking through the forest to the north of the site of our research station with a very basic objective: to follow an ancient, totally overgrown German colonial path through the forest to the nearest village northwards, a distance of over 25 miles (40 kilometers) as the crow flies, to record all signs of mammals and hunting as I went.

I started the trek with my good friend Simon Ngwese, whom I have known for four years, and two local guides: Christian (one of the most prolific hunters in the region) and Etienne (who was an elephant hunter in the 1960s). We set off from Iboti village at 7 a.m., loaded with three tents, sleeping mats, and enough food to last four days. Although I was told that it takes local men two days to complete the trip I know from experience that this usually translates to four days for mortal beings like me!

After two hours of heavy trekking across one mountain range we arrived at the remote village of Ndokmolong consisting of one house, three brothers, one wife, and two happy children, surely the smallest village in Cameroon! I visited Ndokmolong two years ago and little has changed: the men still spend their mornings hunting and checking traps and sleep in the afternoon or listen to the radio when they can afford batteries. There is no electricity, water, motorable road, or neighbors, and I still find myself amazed by the capacity of human beings to adapt to this isolation.

After another two hours of trekking steadily downhill, we arrived at a large river where we had lunch and watched kingfishers darting from rock to rock. Another two hours later it started to rain. We had raincoats, but were soon soaked to the skin because the vegetation covered the path and brushed our legs as we moved. At 4 p.m., after crossing another river seven times, we reached ‘Tom Tom,’ the largest mountain in the area. An hour and half way up (mostly clinging to the trees) we came to a gorgeous waterfall and an hour later we reached the summit. But there was no time to admire the view through the rain, we had to reach the camp before nightfall as walking in the forest at night is dangerous, sometime because of the risk of stumbling into an elephant, but in this forest the danger is that we slip and hurt ourselves on the wet rocks. It was cold here due to the high altitude, and we were soaked to the skin.

We reached a hunter’s shelter (see photo above) at exactly nightfall after 11 ½ hours of trekking and set up our tents under the palm fronds to keep out as much of the rain as we could. Dinner consisted of sardines and (now soggy) bread for the men; I ate bread and peanuts. It was too cold to bathe in the stream, and it was still raining, so I fell asleep dirty and tired.

We got up at 5:30, as soon as it was light - and hooray - it’s not raining! After taking a quick photo of the shelter in the morning mist, we packed up camp and forced our bodies into wet boots to start trekking again, this time through flatter forest, with a marked change in soil type and also vegetation type. This is subtle to the uninitiated - but botanical knowledge of the forest does help in predicting the densities of mammals that might be expected to thrive there. However, I am disappointed; throughout the whole of yesterday we only heard two very small groups of mona monkeys, one of the species most robust to hunting. I recorded lots of traps, empty shotgun cartridges and used batteries (for night hunting), meaning only one thing: this forest is being emptied by hunting for the commercial bushmeat trade.

After seven hours of trekking we came across an abandoned logging road, and I knew our trek was nearly over. A few hours later the road widened, and we saw the first wood houses, remnants of the logging company that was active here six years ago. At around 3 p.m. we reached the village of Ndokbassaben, and since it was Sunday afternoon, everyone was refreshing themselves with palm wine, a mainstay of life in Cameroon, and quite delicious (although not advisable after two days of trekking). The chief was quite wonderful, and arranged motorbikes to take us to the nearest town where we will spent the night. Then we were seen off by the whole village, amazed that we made it from Iboti in two days.

And so back to writing up my notes on this forest and planning the next survey…

Dr. Bethan Morgan is a Conservation Research Fellow for the San Diego Zoo’s CRES.

Here’s more information about Bethan’s project in Cameroon.

Indah and Cinta always go out to the Absolutely Apes exhibit first. This way they can have a few minutes to themselves exploring the exhibit. Who goes out next? Well, it depends. I try not to have everyone go out in the same order; I don’t want them to think that they always go out after so-and-so. Animals like routine, but some variety is good. The only thing I have to remember is that Satu must go out before Clyde. Why? You’ll really have to ask Satu. I have learned the hard way that he refuses to go out if Clyde is already on exhibit. It’s not like Clyde is waiting for him or anything, either. Satu just sits at the door and vocalizes. He is at an age where he sometimes challenges his father, Clyde, the dominant male, but Clyde pretty much ignores Satu. So anyway, Satu must go out before Clyde.

Each orangutan has its own room; Indah and Cinta share two rooms. Janey has the presidential suite, aka the maternity room. Why? She seems to do the best in that room. The bedrooms are side by side, with a hallway along the back end. The back hallway then turns into the chute and from there the animals can go on exhibit. Each bedroom has a slider door that leads to the back hallway. Then there are additional slider doors along the back hallway so you can move the animals as needed. Got all that? Now we’ll start moving the orangutans.

Today, we’ll let Josie (pictured above) out after Indah and Cinta. Josie usually brings an item from her bedroom onto exhibit. It can be a box, paper bag, feed bag, something. If there isn’t anything she thinks is good in her room, she’ll check each bedroom as she goes by and try to snag something. Once she’s in the chute and the door is closed, I ask her to station, which means for her to hold onto the rings that are in the chute. Since this is a relatively new behavior, I sometimes have to point to the rings and then she remembers what she’s supposed to do. Josie has picked up on the ring training quickly. So while she is holding onto the rings, I ask her for some of her other behaviors: chest, ears, feet, turn around. She does all of this while holding onto the rings, everything except “turn around”; she does let go of the rings for that but has started to understand that she is highly rewarded if she holds back onto the rings while turned. Having the orangutans hold onto the rings while in the chute helps us by knowing their hands are occupied and not reaching for anyone. Her rewards for doing so well during her training are slices of bananas that have been subtracted from her breakfast. She is a good eater, so most fruits are welcome. Her training session probably lasts three minutes, then she’s free to join Indah and Cinta.

I try to start letting the orangutans on exhibit around 8:30 a.m. The siamangs that share the Absolutely Apes exhibit are housed in the same building in a bedroom area across from the chute. If the red apes take too long going out, which some of them sometimes do, we run into siamang singing time, which is at 9 a.m. Once those siamangs start singing, the noise is unbearable!

So our goal: to get the orangutans on exhibit before the siamangs start singing while asking them to participate in a training session. Only four more orangutans to go! Who should go on exhibit next?

Yvette Kemp is a senior mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Watch the orangutans and siamangs on Ape Cam!

We started each visit in the outdoor panda classroom, observing Mei Sheng and his interaction with enrichment that the keepers provided him. The girls were given data sheets and ethograms, which are essentially keys to the codes that the researchers use to document behavior. Using a timer that beeped every 60 seconds, we spent ten minutes documenting Mei Sheng’s behavior (and he had a wonderful time with the apple juice popsicles!) and learning how data collectors usually do this in two-hour chunks of time. The ethograms the researchers normally use are pages and pages and pages…and pages…long. Ours only had about six choices!

From there, we took our data up into the conference room and spent a little time discussing the different types of data that our team is focused on: animal welfare, enrichment interaction, play, mating, mother-infant interaction, and cub development. We also learned that female panda behavior changes radically when estrus is approaching, during breeding, and through pregnancy and birth, and found the details fascinating. So little was known about pandas before Bai Yun and Shi Shi arrived in 1996, every little thing our team learns contributes greatly to the general knowledge base.

The girls felt privileged to be a small part of this ongoing 12-year research project. Thanks, Staci and Pamela, for illuminating the finer details of data collection!

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.

Why would a panda need to avoid giving birth yearly? One of the driving factors for the spacing of births seems to be the development of the cub. If the young were to become separated from their mothers at six months of age, before they are able to sustain themselves on bamboo (many of their bamboo feeding teeth have yet to come in at that age), then they will not survive. Lactational suppression seems to function on a timescale that allows the cub to fully develop the teeth and the skill set necessary to support itself on bamboo before being weaned.

The fact that female pandas can get pregnant more often than every other year tells us something about their biology. It would make sense that in a year in which a female gave birth to a cub or cubs, but was not able to ensure their survival, she should be able to breed again soon. From an evolutionary perspective, if you aren’t raising cubs, you should be working on creating some new ones. Wild animals are often brought into estrus upon the death of their dependant offspring: think of lions, for example. Females in the pride will begin cycling if a new male takes over the pride and kills their young. This ensures that each lioness is in a constant state of “getting her genes into the next generation.” We have every reason to expect that this same logic applies to the panda.

In captivity, animals are exposed to many factors which have an impact on their well being and daily life. We provide them with highly nutritious food, veterinary care, and safety from predators, disease, and injury. Captive managers can also manipulate aspects of an animal’s life to promote specialized breeding. Those of you who breed dogs or cats know this firsthand. In China, they also manipulate panda mothers by removing their offspring and thereby promoting a rapid cycling of breeding and birth.

Since the Chinese-born panda cubs are reared by human hands, they will survive their early weaning from their mother. From their mother’s perspective, however, the cubs are gone, and her body then sets its sights on the next crop of baby pandas. Interestingly, not all females have been able to get pregnant yearly. It is very common for a first-time mother to be unable to get pregnant in the year following the birth of her first cubs. Why this is remains unclear; perhaps her body is still maturing and needs more time to develop a rhythm like older females have. Perhaps the first pregnancy is especially taxing and drains the female of nutritional reserves that require more time to replenish. In any case, many females take two years or more from the birth of their first to second litters, regardless of what human intervention occurs.

Hua Mei was one exception to that trend. Why was she capable of having cubs two years running right from the start? We cannot say. Perhaps she had a better nutritional start in life because she was mother reared for 18 months and was never given formula; this might allow her to avoid being completely nutritionally depleted between pregnancies. Or perhaps she just beat the odds. In any case, she will likely continue to breed each year that the Chinese allow her to, and her cubs will continue to be raised by the competent staff of the Wolong nursery.

Next week I’ll discuss this further, anticipating some of the questions I will receive on this topic.

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

He answered many of our questions, including whether or not the early weaning of the cubs would cause them problems with socialization later on. He said that they do not seem to have a problem becoming social after being separated from their mothers. Their interactions with the other cubs and their keepers, along with the enrichment program of activities and new experiences, provide stimulation and other benefits. The “kindergarten” concept apparently is providing an important part of the cubs’ development.

Some of the popular equipment the cubs enjoyed using as we watched: a swinging wooden glider, a yellow plastic rocking horse, a wooden slide, a large white ball, several climbing trees, and a stable wooden deck suitable for wrestling and shoving other cubs off when they feel like doing it. They don’t “take turns” on the slide and bump into one another as a result!

The wooden glider was definitely a favorite of several of the cubs who used it like a piece of gym equipment and also shoved one another off onto the ground. (They were probably laughing a panda cub laugh.)

6) It was easy to see that each cub has her/his own personality – some playful, some assertive, others quite gentle.
7) My cub decided to climb off my lap when the apple slices were gone and was attracted by a bright green plastic luggage tag that he noticed. Anything new and different is a source of exploration and stimulation, similar to human babies.

Other SDZ tour group members had their own individual playtime with these wonderful and loveable results of the extremely successful joint Chinese and SDZ giant panda project.

Many panda team blog fans have asked about the “American Princess,” Hua Mei. We were able to watch her crunch bamboo and she appears to be doing very well. Because the giant panda estrus cycle comes for only a few days, she is temporarily in a breeding area right now and shows the necessary signs that signal this is the right time for breeding her again.

If successful, she will have an opportunity to once again help save these lovable animals from extinction, after already giving birth to two sets of twins. This is an important part of the plans for saving giant pandas from extinction because she is the only child of the process successfully conducted between Shi Shi (father) and Bai Yun (mother) at the SDZ.

Cathy G.

Amy Parrott is the San Diego Zoo’s WorldWild Tours escort. Cathy G. is one of our regular panda blog readers, reporting in on her WorldWild Tours China adventures.

Here’s Cathy G.’s previous installment.

On Monday, May 1, one of the Village keepers discovered two newborn piglets with Janey and Mowgli. They were each about one pound (.45 kilograms) at birth and on Wednesday we discovered they are both males. They are about the size of a soda can covered with dark red fur, and tan half-inch wide horizontal stripes. In the wild, the stripes would be important for camouflage. Their red fur is somewhat coarse but the tan stripes are really coarse and are raised up a little. They already have the distinctive long ears of the red river hog, too! I’ve been told the piglets are going to be called Andy and Randy, in honor of two Park employees. We are extremely happy to report that the entire family is doing well.

Beth Rich is a mammal keeper at the Wild Animal Park.

Here at the Wild Animal Park they get dry cat kibble, chopped up apple or other fruit, chopped up yam or carrot, about 75 grams (2.6 ounces) of ground meat, and about three quarters of a cup of either small mealworms, giant mealworms, live crickets, or night crawlers. Live crickets seem to be the favorite, but they are not that enthused with the night crawlers. We feed the dry food, fruit, and veggies in an off-exhibit area, but we place the meat and bugs on exhibit. We put little meatballs on the rocks, on the fake termite mound, and on the logs; this way, they have to forage and look around for their meal, just as they would do in the wild.

I usually will feed out the meat in the morning and try to come back in the afternoon to feed out the bugs. Often times, I’ll make an insect parfait: I get a bucket, add a layer of dirt, then a layer of bugs, then another layer of dirt, then bugs, dirt, bugs, etc, etc, etc. I go into their exhibit, turn the bucket upside down, just like building a sand castle, remove the bucket and stand back! They will converge on the dirt pile and start diggin’! I try to use at least three buckets so that there is not too much competition for the food. Digging through the dirt to search for food is a natural behavior and good enrichment for meerkats. I love working with them and they give me a great deal of satisfaction in my day.

Beth Rich is a mammal keeper at the Wild Animal Park.

The Wild Animal Park’s meerkats live in Nairobi Village.

Sometimes, coming up with enrichment ideas can be draining. You don’t want to repeat yourself too much or make everything food related. And there are things you need to keep in mind when coming up with enrichment ideas, too. Is it safe for all the animals in the exhibit? Will they fight over it? Is it naturalistic? Is it something that pertains to their natural behaviors? Will the animals be able to use the item? Will the activity stimulate the animal’s senses, environment, or be manipulative?

I came up with an idea several weeks ago that I thought might be fun for everyone involved. All enrichment ideas need to be approved by our nutritionist, veterinarians, supervisors, and others, depending on the activity. For this specific enrichment activity I also needed the approval of the San Diego Zoo’s Operations Department. Why? Because it was going to be a little messy!

Wondering what the enrichment activity is? Well… it’s painting. Most of our orangutans already paint on canvases and in their rooms; my idea was to put paint on the exhibit windows so the orangutans could touch, lick, and smear the paint around.

Before the orangutans were released into their Absolutely Apes exhibit, I painted flowers and shapes on the windows. The idea was to have decorative paintings that the orangutans could either look at or alter as they wished. The orangutans were very excited about the paint. Everyone participated; even Clyde checked each drawing and dabbed in the paint. Most of the animals touched and smeared the drawings, but more than anything, they licked them. I guess you could call it lick art. It was fun to watch them investigate the paintings. Later in the day, Karen (pictured above) filled her mouth with water and squirted a couple of the windows. This dampened the paint, making it easy to smear again. Josephine then came by with a paper bag and began wiping the windows clean. I guess it was a bit too much for her.

Since it was their first encounter with the activity, only a couple of the windows were painted. Today, we decided to do it again and painted a few more windows. This time, even Cinta and Indah participated! It was fun to see all the orangutans up close and personal, showing off their artistic abilities.

Hopefully you’ll be at the Zoo when the orangutans get to play with paint again. I know it won’t be an activity that happens often; I wouldn’t want the novelty of the experience to wear off. Plus, it’s hard to be an inspired painter every day!

Yvette M. Kemp is a senior mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo.

Watch the orangutans and siamangs daily on Ape Cam.