Jennifer Keating with Wolong keepers in April, 2008

On a different note, while I was in Wolong I was able to see how much the San Diego Zoo has impacted the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. My first experience was in the amount of respect the research center had for me just because I was from the San Diego Zoo. They provided help for my project constantly and I couldn’t have done it without them. The research center had spent such a great deal of time working with Ron Swaisgood in past years that they have developed a level of trust and respect with the research he conducts. Being able to say that Ron was my boss made people trust that I knew what I was doing and that it would be productive research.

Rarely in life do we have the opportunity to witness the effects of donations, research, and advice given to an organization. The China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda has blossomed because of all our help. Doug Myers, the San Diego Zoo’s executive director, saw the potential and need in China for the help that the Zoo could provide for the giant pandas. The facility in Wolong reflected, in their grounds, exhibits, training, animal husbandry, and research, that the San Diego Zoo and donors around the world had made an impact. Even though the facility is in trouble now because of the earthquake, I know that it will survive and move forward because the San Diego Zoo and its friends will to continue to help the giant pandas.

Jennifer Keating is a research scientist at the San Diego Zoo.

Read Jennifer’s previous blog, Wolong: Will Fei Fei Find a Mate?

Consequently, the wind conditions within a condor’s habitat are likely one of the principle determinants of condor foraging ability, which is why condor introduction programs have been sited in mountainous regions with strong updrafts. Enhanced understanding of the meteorological conditions that determine the flying ability and foraging success of condors is vital to tailoring reintroduction programs to the bird’s habitat needs. No formal analysis of the characteristics of the winds that shape condor movements has yet been conducted.

We recently installed the first of an array of remote weatherstations that will be placed throughout the expanding ranges of the condors that are being reintroduced to Baja California, Mexico. The units include an anemometer to measure wind speed and direction and a thermometer to measure air temperature. The weather data is stored in a data recorder and can be downloaded at the end of the recording period (limited to about six months of memory capacity) using a handheld shuttle. Rather than choosing arbitrary locations, the sites where the weatherstation are to be installed were selected by overlaying the home ranges of 14 birds that were GPS-tracked for three years. This way the climate data we record will be taken from habitats that have actually been used intensively by the birds themselves. The big challenge to our team is that the weatherstation sites are in very remote and inaccessible areas, which presents considerable logistic difficulties for equipment installation and data acquisition.

The site for the installation of our first weatherstation was only half a mile from the Baja base camp, which certainly made it easy for us to carry the units and all of the equipment needed to set them up. Once at the site we selected a suitable tree on which to mount the weather sensors. The stations must be installed well off the ground to sample the strongest wind flows while minimizing ground-based turbulence and interference. We also need the units to be high enough to deter interference by curious animals (and curious people!). We needed climbing ropes and harnesses to bolt the unit 33 feet (10 meters) off the ground onto the main trunk of the tree. This was not an easy task, and was complicated by the fact that each unit must also be precisely calibrated to compass directions, often while the units were recording wind velocities of more than 33 feet (10 meters) per second.

The second weatherstation was placed at Venado Blanco, at the crest of a steep ridge overlooking a series of valleys back toward the condor campsite, which was about three miles to the southwest. The reintroduced condors have been tracked coming to this site many times over the past three years, and during our journey to the site we encountered a herd of deer and noticed the hoof prints of cattle and scats from various animals – the kinds of things that attract inquisitive and hungry condors. Getting to the Venado Blanco site required some serious off-roading and a hike with the weatherstations and their installation equipment across steep chaparral covered slopes.

The site itself was a picturesque study in contrasts, with colorful desert flowers in bloom beneath blackened pine trees that had been scarred by numerous lightening strikes and wildfires. The frequent storm activity in the area is of particular concern, since a high voltage blast of static electricity could have some serious negative consequences for one of our little weatherstations! To reduce the possibility of lightening strike we grounded our units to a long copper rod that we hammered into the ground. Needless to say, trying to find sufficient earth in which to hammer a six-foot rod into in a rocky granite peak also presented a physical challenge.

The remaining weatherstations are soon to be installed across the remote eastern canyons of the Baja reintroduction site that face the open deserts towards the Gulf of California. This network of canyons includes Picacho Del Diablo, which is the steepest peak in Baja. The sheer difficulty of reaching these sites necessitates the incorporation of a remote data uplink system into the weatherstations, to beam the climate data directly to us via a satellite modem. Once installed, we will be able to access the weather information provided by the units via the Internet. By matching the wind conditions and air temperatures with the movement patterns of the ranging condors we will be able to build an extensive and accurate picture of the environmental factors that shape condor habitat use and foraging success. This is another example of how cutting-edge technology can contribute highly valuable information to enhance management programs designed to conserve threatened species.

Your gifts to this fund will provide emergency relief and supplies to the pandas and their caretakers and will help them rebuild their homes and other facilities. The staff at the Wolong Nature Reserve and breeding center have been championed in the press for their heroic efforts to save the pandas, the visiting tourists, and each other. Let’s help these people and their pandas get back on their feet and back to normal as quickly as possible.

Back to normal for Wolong means playing a critical role in the conservation of this most endearing animal. Wolong is the leading facility for conservation breeding of giant pandas. If you look back to the mid-1990s, the breeding centers in China and elsewhere were failing to reach sustainability, meaning the population relied on capture of wild pandas to keep the population from going extinct. Since then, Wolong has turned around its breeding program, increasing the numbers from about 25 to well over 100. Having discovered—through an intensive research program—what was required to get pandas to “do what comes naturally,” most of this increase is attributed to natural mating. At the San Diego Zoo, one of the accomplishments we are most proud of is the assistance we provided that helped make this revolution in panda breeding possible. Wolong also has an active field conservation and science program for the wild pandas living in the Nature Reserve. With such a track record we can be sure that our donations will go to a good cause!

Thank you all for your support and for sharing your information about the news coming out of Wolong. I read these and learn a lot more about what’s happening. I hesitate to call or e-mail my friends in China too often because I know they are inundated with requests for information that may be a distraction from the laborious tasks at hand during the crisis. I don’t have much to add to the comments, but will fill in one bit of information. Many of you have asked why we can’t identify Hua Mei. The staff at Wolong can easily identify Hua Mei and every other panda just by looking at them. Yes, we did implant a microchip for permanent identification, but you can only read it from a few feet away so it won’t help find a panda in the forest. The problem wasn’t that Wolong staff weren’t sure which pandas escaped, but that we did not have that information. Remember, to the best of my knowledge, the zoo community in the U.S. here has only received two or three short e-mails from people actually living at Wolong. No phone calls. Our information is largely coming from Wolong staff that have not been in Wolong since before the quake. With so much to worry about (How are the pandas? How is your family?) our contacts have not thought to ask the question about which pandas escaped. I am happy to learn that it appears that Hua Mei did not escape and her oldest cub has been recaptured. We have high hopes for those other two pandas that are still out there.

Ron Swaisgood is the co-head of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Conservation Unit.

The third egg to hatch produced a condor named Sespe (say “SESS-pee”). She hatched May 25, 1983 and, at the time of her hatching, was only the 26^th condor in existence. Her parents were known as the Red Rock pair; mom is Tama (see her blog entry from April 7, 2008) and dad was a bird known as CCM (Castaic Creek Male). Sespe has spent the majority of her life at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, but from 1984 to 1992 she lived at the Los Angeles Zoo.

Sespe was paired with a male named AC-4 for ten years. She has laid 19 eggs, resulting in 14 chicks. Three of her chicks are part of the captive breeding population – 1 at the Oregon Zoo, 1 at the Wild Animal Park, and 1 at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. Five others are flying free as part of the release program – 1 in southern California, 3 in central California, and 1 in northern Arizona.

Sespe is not currently in a breeding pair. In 2002, it was discovered that her genetic line was robust, so she and AC-4 were separated to prevent any genetic over-representation in the captive condor population. Two of Sespe’s sisters were also separated from their mates. In the future Sespe will be paired with another male to once again produce chicks to be released to the wild. For now, she is the star of the Condor Ridge exhibit at the Wild Animal Park. She lives with a male named Meymey and a juvenile male name Nikoy. Often, during the summer, Sespe will perch near the pool where she enjoys a shower from her keepers. Then, Wild Animal Park guests can truly appreciate a condor’s size when she suns herself afterward.

Next time you are at the Wild Animal Park, stop by to wish Sespe a Happy Hatchday as you witness a piece of living history of California and the Condor Recovery Program.

Ultimately, 11 eggs were laid here at the Wild Animal Park. Eight were fertile and three were infertile. Of the fertile eggs, one died very early in development (perhaps after the first few days of growth) and five have hatched. We’re still waiting for the other two. One is due at the end of May, while the last egg is due in the middle of June.

Of the three infertile eggs, one was produced by a pair of younger birds – this sometimes happens when birds are gaining nesting experience- and two were laid by a bird that was not housed with a male. This was our big surprise of the season! Itaxmay, our mentor for the Baja-bound condors laid two eggs while she was housed with three young birds waiting to be shipped to Mexico for release. Normally, Itaxmay and the Baja cohort are housed in a facility deep in the backcountry of the Wild Animal Park. The wildfire burned through their large flight pen and it wasn’t safe to return them after the fire. So, they were housed in our breeding facility, which is equipped with a nesting chamber. With access to this chamber, and stimulated by the courtship displays of the pair housed in the pen next door, Itaxmay surprised us all by laying her first egg – and her second one was laid 30 days later!

The five chicks that have already hatched are all healthy and growing quickly. Three are being puppet-raised and should eventually be released in Baja California. Two others are being raised by their parents and may be released in either California or Arizona.

The oldest puppet-raised chick is named Sitow (say “SEE-toe”), which means, “to cleanse with smoke from burning sage” in Chumash. Sitow was the first chick to hatch after the fire. The second chick is Yinci (say “YIN-see”), a Chumash word for “to get hot.” Aqshwalaw (say “ahk-SHWAH-lah”) hatched from an egg that was laid on Valentine’s Day, so we thought it appropriate to name it the Chumash word for “love.”

The two chicks being parent-raised are named Oxkon (say “OH-cone”) and Ich-Ich (say “EECH-eech”). They are also both Chumash words; Oxkon means “thunder” and Ich-Ich means “younger sibling.” Sitow and Oxkon are siblings, as are Yinci and Ich-Ich.

We’ll keep you posted on the last two eggs, as well as progress on all of the chicks’ growth. Stay tuned!

Zhou also told me about the panic that struck everyone in the aftermath of the earthquake. All the staff at Bifengxia feared for the lives and safety of their loved ones in Wolong and Dujiangyan. Many broke down in tears under the stress of not knowing. I also learned that the building where Zhou lives in Dujiangyan is okay, but the buildings where most of the Wolong staff lived are uninhabitable. These families have been moved to Bifengxia where they are doing well but living in crowded conditions.

The situation at Wolong itself is still pretty rough, but there have been some improvements. Most importantly, there is food and medicine. In addition to the helicopters and foot soldiers bringing in supplies, they have now opened the road leading out of Wolong up to Baoxing County. This road leads away from Dujiangyan into remote mountains and beautiful villages, many above 12,000 feet (3,600 meters). The road down the mountain to Dujiangyan and the large cities will take months to repair.

Several of the buildings at Hetauping, the panda breeding center, survived the quake, including many but not all of the enclosures. The vet hospital was not significantly damaged and can still be used. Shawan, the village 3 miles (5 kilometers) up the mountain that contains the administrative headquarters for the entire reserve, was harder hit, with most buildings uninhabitable. The Wolong people are crammed into about 30 large tents—safe, but probably not very comfortable. Many others are sleeping in their cars.

There has been some confusion on the Web sites and the blog commentaries about deaths at Wolong. I’ve heard reports that up to 20 people are known to be dead in the area, but can’t confirm the number…but certainly people in the reserve were killed. This tragic loss of life, I’ve been told by several people, does not include any of the staff or caretakers at the panda breeding center, but as many as five may have been employees of the Wolong Nature Reserve. Two Reserve staff members were only 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the epicenter and described seeing the earth open up in front of them, close, then open up again. It must have been terrifying.

I’ve also learned that “4 or 5” pandas did escape from the breeding center after the quake, but (perhaps) all but two have been recaptured and are safe. I haven’t learned the identities of the missing pandas and can’t be sure that Hua Mei or her offspring weren’t among them. I think—and hope—probably not. At least two emergency shipments of supplies for pandas have been delivered. Many of the pandas are living in smaller makeshift enclosures, but I don’t know the details.

There have been several comments and questions about the safety of wild pandas. I think it is safe to say that we have no idea what may have happened to the wild pandas. People can spend weeks and months in prime panda habitat, see their signs every day, and still not see a wild panda. Researchers at Wolong have been trying to capture pandas to place GPS collars on them so they can track and study them, but they have not been able to catch any yet. I am working at another reserve in Shanxi province in collaboration with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Science. We have captured and collared pandas, but these are the only pandas with radiotracking devices in the wild anywhere. (They were far from the quake and not harmed.) If you see reports about “pandas in reserves” reported safe or otherwise, they must be referring to pandas in breeding centers, not wild pandas.

Would wild pandas be at risk during an earthquake? Maybe, but I don’t see how they could be decimated. Flying boulders, falling trees and landslides may have put some pandas in jeopardy, but, just as most humans survived if they were not inside large buildings, I think most pandas would survive. Fortunately, pandas are well known for their aversion to steep slopes, instead seeking gentle inclines, ridgetops, and valleys. This would reduce some risk, at least, to the most devastating landslides. But, given the incredibly rugged and remote terrain in panda territory, we will never know just how severe losses in the wild population may have been.

I hope I have answered many of the questions which I’ve seen in the comments and have done my best to ensure their accuracy. But, in situations like this, one can never be 100 percent certain about all the “facts.” I appreciate the outpouring of concern for the pandas and people of Wolong and all the offers of support.

Ron Swaisgood is the co-head of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Conservation Unit.

I finally heard from one of my best friends, Zhou Xiaoping, who is now serving as director of the Bifengxia panda facility near Ya’An. His wife is in Wolong and is okay. He also arranged to bring many of the staff’s family members from Dujiangyan to Bifengxia where it is safe. That is the best way he can help. From Wolong, Li Desheng, director of the breeding center, managed to get a short e-mail out to one of my colleagues. He says that “we are fine” but that they need a lot of help. The damage to the infrastructure is severe and supplies are running short. It will take a long time to rebuild and recover from this, both for pandas and people. Everyone has ensured me that they are still taking good care of the pandas, but just need more supplies. They are short on bamboo and bread for the pandas. The surrounding areas do contain lots of bamboo, so I am sure that they will have some bamboo, as long as they can get to it safely. They grow much of their bamboo on farms today, but they used to harvest natural bamboo to feed the pandas. Of course, they don’t want to impact the wild pandas’ food, but most of the wild pandas live farther from the breeding center, at higher elevations.

I’ve also heard from Jen Keating, our research technician who has been living in Wolong since March. She left Chengdu the morning of the earthquake, just before it struck. She hasn’t been able to reach anyone at Wolong, but like all of us she is worried about all of our friends in Wolong.

The San Diego Zoo will be working with the other zoos and the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s (AZA) Giant Panda Foundation to establish a relief fund to help the people and the pandas, who will continue to have great needs for weeks and months to come. Please stay tuned.

Thanks to everyone for their support and well wishes in these difficult times.

Ron Swaisgood is the co-head of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Conservation Unit.

These people are my good friends. I started living and working with them in 1996. I’ve eaten dinner at their houses, played cards with them, traveled with them, joked and worked with them. I played basketball with them every day it didn’t rain. I watched their children grow up. For the first five years or so I was over there living in Wolong for several months each year. It is my second home. Recently, I’ve moved to another reserve where I am studying wild pandas with different friends and colleagues, so I haven’t seen my Wolong friends as often as I’d like to.

I also know many of the pandas as individuals. I saw many of them being born. I watched them grow up, side by side with my human friends’ children. I am also concerned for their welfare, but believe that as long as the people taking care of them are okay, they’ll be okay. I didn’t expect many, if any, pandas to die. Most would be outside, the others in small bedrooms. If the bedrooms collapsed, I think a panda could withstand the falling concrete. Pandas are quite a bit tougher than humans. At 2:47 p.m., the time of the quake, people may be in their offices in 3-story buildings. The epicenter of the quake was nearby, so I imagine that many of these buildings have been demolished. I received an e-mail from Chinese contacts stating that indeed the area was “severely damaged.” I just have to wait to find out what, exactly, that means.

When I hear that, perhaps, none of the staff at the Wolong center were killed, I still worry. Even if none of the staff working at Wolong, more than 20 people living there may have been killed, according to some reports. I worry even more about their families. Many of the staff at Wolong have a second home in Dujiangyan, the city at the base of the mountain that was severely damaged by the quake. Here their spouses find work and their children go to school. Were any of them in the school there that collapsed, killing hundreds? The staff live in a complex of concrete apartment buildings six stories high. I’ve spent many weekends there, usually staying with my friend’s family on the sixth floor. I worry about them and all the other families there. Other reports indicate that an upstream dam is damaged and the army is working frantically to shore it up before it breaks. If it does, it will bring more devastation to Dujiangyan.

I am concerned for the pandas in the aftermath of the earthquake. They may escape damaged enclosures. Food and medicines may run low. Their human caretakers may be injured or dealing with the devastating results of the quake and not have time to give the pandas the best care possible. The best way to help the pandas, I believe, is to help the people taking care of the pandas. If their needs for food, shelter, and family security are met, they will continue to take excellent care of the pandas with the resources they have available to them.

I hope both my panda and people friends at Wolong are okay and that they will pull through this in the face of what must be horrific devastation.

Ron Swaisgood is the co-head of the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Conservation Unit.

‘Alala sharing enrichment food items

Once all the materials are in place, it is time to socialize males and females a little at a time and watch the birds’ behaviors, good and bad. This part of the process feels a little bit like chaperoning a school dance—except that we want the amorous couple to go all the way! This year at MBCC we have three pairs of breeding puaiohi, three pairs of Maui parrotbills, and three pairs of ‘alala.

The Hawaiian crow, or ‘alala, is critically endangered, and breeding season for this species is especially important. Much thought and planning goes in to every step of the process. Socializations start with 20-minute sessions to watch for the crows’ initial reactions to each other. This new and sudden interaction can lead to positive results, such as wooing and copulation. It could also very easily go the other way with contact aggression and fighting. As the crows grow more comfortable with each other and within each other’s aviaries, the sessions are lengthened and will eventually last the entire day. It only takes one good socialization to produce results, but allowing for that perfect moment to occur is risky business.

Puaiohi chick in nesting cup

So far this year we have three puaiohi hatchlings that the staff are hand raising, and they are doing great! One is now three weeks old and is learning to eat on his own. The second was hatched one week ago and is slowly and painfully growing in feathers. The last is only a few days old. The chicks hatch featherless and blind and are completely dependent on their substitute parents, the staff. Over the next 40 days they grow bigger and stronger, learn how to eat by themselves, fledge the nest, and eventually learn to fly. Whether these chicks are later released on Kauai or become captive breeders, they, like all the new arrivals, are valuable to the survival of the species. And that makes our work here so important!

Preparing diets for the birds

We also have four more eggs in the incubators that are set to hatch within the next few days. Every day the eggs are weighed to monitor the amount of fluid that is being lost. The eggs are kept in highly sensitive incubators that can be adjusted to the most exact degrees of heat and humidity, depending on the specific conditions the egg needs to properly develop. The eggs are also candled periodically to watch for specific stages in development. What we look for during candling are signs of healthy egg development; blood vessels, embryo growth and movement, and expansion of the air cell.

Busy birds mean busy days for the staff at MBCC! We will keep you posted on our progress throughout breeding season. In the meantime, send lusty thoughts our way!

Karen McKeogh is an intern at the San Diego Zoo’s Maui Bird Conservation Center.

Read more blogs about the Hawaii Endangered Bird Program…

Habitat pressure from an ever-increasing human population is a common problem for many endangered species. In China, where the population is thought to have exceeded 1.32 billion last year and continues to grow at a reasonably slow rate of 0.6% per year (as of 2003), nearly 8 million people are added annually. Housing and feeding these people, and supporting the amazingly fast economic development of China, requires resources. The clearing of land for agricultural purposes represents a significant threat to the panda today.

Fortunately, the Chinese government began taking action to protect the panda in the latter half of the 1900s. A system of panda reserves was created to set aside habitat for the bear, whose populations had already contracted into the shrunken spaces allotted to them. Unfortunately, the subpopulations have been isolated from one another, separated by farms and restricted to high mountain areas.

Some corridors have been created recently that could allow for movement of bears between subpopulations, and efforts to replenish bamboo in low-lying areas of some reserves have begun. Steps such as these aim to mitigate the impact of past habitat fragmentation, but the current small groupings of bears and their relative isolation from one another remains a great challenge to the species. Not only does such fragmentation limit genetic exchange and reduce the potential for mating opportunities, but it makes the panda especially vulnerable to food shortages.

As you know, the panda subsists nearly exclusively on bamboo. Usually, this food source is an abundant, fast-growing plant that literally surrounds the bears in their habitat. However, the bamboo life cycle is such that at intervals the plant will experience a mass die-off, affecting nearly all plants of that species. When this occurs, pandas must switch to alternate bamboo species to fill their stomachs. Unfortunately, another side effect of habitat fragmentation is that switching to another species of bamboo may not be a viable option for some panda subpopulations. Chance plays a role in determining the abundance of various bamboos in a particular pocket of habitat, and if a panda was unlucky in that it lives in an area with a low diversity of bamboo species, it could be stranded without food. Without good corridors connecting pockets of habitat, the pandas within areas of mass die-off may starve.

According to the Red List, the most significant factor in conserving the panda today is habitat restoration. To this end, China has worked to increase forestation in and around reserves. Several programs banning logging and discouraging hillside farming in previously forested areas have been implemented. According to a 2006 report of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, these progressive policies have resulted in gains in forested area in China. Continued progress with such efforts should ultimately benefit the panda, as well as other species that share its habitat.

How can you, as a concerned global citizen, contribute to efforts to improve the outlook for this endangered bear? Since the government of China is the largest agent in promoting positive changes for the giant panda, it may seem that an ordinary person might not be able to have an impact. However, it is possible to offer support to organizations that work with the Chinese government to encourage conservation efforts for the panda. The World Wildlife Fund has a long history of such partnerships with Chinese ministries responsible for maintaining the panda population and currently has several habitat-oriented conservation efforts in place. Additionally, supporting efforts to promote panda research within China, using Chinese scientists, can increase pressure on the Chinese government from within. The San Diego Zoo collaborates with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, promoting the work of Chinese researchers who are studying the ecology of wild pandas.

The bottom line: preservation of wild populations of pandas is primarily dependent upon the restoration of panda habitat in China. The Chinese government holds the cards in this effort. As a global citizen, you can make the greatest difference by finding a way to contribute to continuing and future efforts to increase forestation, set aside more reserves, and reduce habitat fragmentation. With improved efforts in these areas, we may soon see the giant panda removed from the endangered species list.

Suzanne Hall is a senior research technician with the San Diego Zoo’s Giant Panda Unit.

Listen to an iZoofari Chat with Suzanne about panda conservation…