San Diego Zoo Blogs

I am pleased to report that the San Diego Zoo's sun bear mother Marcella and her two cubs are doing very well. (Read Suzanne's previous blog, Sun Bear Cubs: Multiple Personalities.) Now six weeks old, the youngsters have pudgy, round bellies and rolls of flesh that indicate mom is feeding them well. They are big enough that Marcella cannot cover them both completely at the same time, so their increased bulk should act as a buffer against the cold weather.
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G'day! My name is Brent, and I am one of the Sumatran tiger keepers from the Melbourne Zoo in Australia. For the next three months I am lucky enough to be working at the San Diego Zoo, participating in a keeper exchange with a great guy named Adam. I'm working in the San Diego Zoo's hoofed animals team, while he looks after our native animals at the Melbourne Zoo. It has been an outstanding experience so far! (Read Adam's previous blog, Hopping along the Exchange.)
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Wednesday, December 10, marked the return to "home base," the left-hand or south viewing area for giant pandas Bai Yun and Zhen Zhen after a 10-day absence. The reason for this was readily apparent: a renovated cave area, lots of pruning and clean up, and newly-planted shrubs provided a refreshed and renewed environment for mother and cub. And what an interesting environment it was! Not only were there new structures and plants to be investigated, but each and every smell left behind by the construction workers, the gardeners, and their equipment had to be olfactorily investigated, especially by Zhen Zhen.
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On Monday, December 1, the San Diego Zoo welcomed its newest addition, a baby harpy eagle Harpia harpyja, the 14th hatched at the Zoo since 1994.

The Zoo's pair of adult harpy eagles laid a single egg in their exhibit on October 10. Ten days later, the egg was pulled and set in an incubator, where its development could be carefully watched by the keepers at the Avian Propagation Center (APC). We weighed the egg daily to make sure that it was losing the right amount of water as the chick developed inside. We also monitored the progression of the embryo using a technique called "candling."
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Okapis are majestic yet secretive animals. Native to the lush rain forests of Zaire, they remained hidden within the forest’s dense vegetation for centuries before Western scientists became aware of them. By contrast, local forest people have always known of this wary species with their acute sense of hearing and use of well-trodden paths in the forest. Of all the animals in the San Diego Zoo’s collection, they are the most unusual, appearing at first glance to be a hybrid of a zebra, brown cow, and giraffe. Indeed, their striped rump could be mistaken for a zebra from a distance and their head (complete with horns or ossicones) is particularly reminiscent of the giraffe (albeit with a much shorter neck!).
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San Diego saw its first glimpse at winter when snow fell at the San Diego Zoo’s Polar Bear Plunge. The snow was courtesy of WowWee Alive Cubs, and our bears couldn’t have been more appreciative. When Kalluk, Chinook, and Tatqiq stepped out into the white icy hill, you could almost see the smiles on their faces; you could definitely hear the laughter coming from our guests!
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I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, ate too much, and took a moment to reflect on the things they are most grateful for. This year I am thankful for my family, and especially for my new baby daughter at home. My Thanksgiving was a bit different this year though…instead of baking apple pies and other goodies to bring over to my family’s house, I was watching our new sloth bear, Buddha.
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This past April in the San Diego Zoo's Ituri Forest habitat, African spotted-necked otter Pori gave birth to a new baby girl we've named Lila. Along with the excitement of this birth, we were also a little apprehensive about how mom would treat her older daughter, Mugo. Our experience with spotted-necked otters in the past prepared us for the possibility of Mugo being expelled from the group when the new baby and mom joined them.
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Nindiri, the San Diego Zoo's young female jaguar, spends most of her time in an enclosure behind the main jaguar exhibit in Cat Canyon (see Karen's previous blog, Jaguars: Meet Nindiri). However, she is often visible beyond the back right corner of the main exhibit.
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Sharp-eyed viewers and perplexed visitors to the San Diego Zoo have noticed that things look a bit different than they did on Sunday. We've been playing "Musical Bears," rotating the animals into different areas. There are some changes in store for Bai and ZZ's exhibit, and as the demolition and construction commenced Monday morning, they were moved to the normally closed "classroom exhibit" to be as far away from the din as possible. We then opened this single area to guests and will continue to do so until the projects are completed. Now, I could tell you what's going on, but let's keep it a surprise for everyone, actual and virtual viewer alike. (Change is good.)
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