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Olympic Pandas & Panda Enthusiast

Two wonderful videos, one that shows the eight 2 year-olds from the Wolong Panda Research Center who are at the Beijing Zoo as part of the Olympic Celebration and part 2 is an interview with a panda enthusiast, who has traveled all over the world to see them.  This kind of publicity couldn't have come at a better time, since the giant pandas already limited habitat has been devasted by the earthquake of May 12, 2008.  The pandas classification as an endangered species is so much more now then ever.  Please, click on one of the YOU CAN HELP!  links on the left side of the blog page and do what you can to provide them a chance to stay alive on this planet with us.  Thanks.

Too Sweet! Pandas in Memphis

So often, due to budget restraints, the only way to observe Giant Pandas is by going on line, checking out those zoo websites that have pandas or researching any stories written about them around the world. Flickr, the photo sharing website, is also a great source for not only keeping up with pandas all around the world, but meeting and getting to know other panda lovers.  One panda pal, who lives close to the Memphis Zoo, kuku4pandas, provides current photos and recent news through flickr, about Ya Ya the female and Le Le the male on regular trips to see them .  It is through these regular visits by other panda pals that you can get to know the personalities of the pandas along with interesting traits of each of them.  Here is a little of what kuku has shared, from questions asked of the keepers and casual observations.

Ya Ya and Le Le have a spacious outdoor area covered in grass with structures for climbing, water cooled rocks and pools to help them keep cooler in the warmer months. Even with all of these amenities, Ya Ya being the girl she is, prefers life indoors to the outdoors, no matter the weather.

Ya Ya's name means 'beautiful little girl', she was born at the Beijing Zoo, China and she was hand raised, meaning they removed her from her mother very early and then raised her themselves.  So, interacting with her keepers is natural for Ya, they say she is very playful and freely expresses herself to them vocally.  She has distinctive eye patches, in that the black fur does not come all the way up to her eyes, showing a small circle of skin around her eyes.  She has long ears that set on the top of her head. 

Getting Ya Ya to go outside so that the keepers can clean and prepare her indoor area with fresh boo and enrichment items, requires some patience. Ya Ya will stand halfway in and halfway out the doorway, sniffing the air, maybe gauging the temperature, but she certainly takes her time about it.  After a few minutes she saunters out into the outdoors, soon discovering fresh boo or other items that the keepers have set out for her, but before long she will be making trips back to the doorway to be let back into her climate controlled day room.  The keepers can also move the pandas around through a series of enclosed metal-caged walkways inside while they clean and prepare their day rooms for fresh boo and enrichment items.

She doesn't like the water and so is rarely seen in the pool, but as you can see with the two photos,  she will climb atop one of the 'cool rocks' that has cold water tubing running through it providing a cool surface.

She is still very young, born  August 3, 2000 and the zoo staff are constantly monitoring her breedng behavior.  Most female pandas come into estrus only once in the spring for a period of 2-3 days.  Ya Ya sometimes comes into estrus twice a year. It is during these times you will see Ya Ya and Le Le together in hopes that they will mate naturally. Last year with the natural mating being unsuccessful, the staff used artificial insemination.  A fetus was observed through ultrasound but the fetus did not make it to full term.  This spring Ya Ya didn't come into estrus, so am sure the zoo staff is scratching their heads trying to understand.  She currently weighs about 205 lbs.

She loves apples, raisins soaked in water , watermelon, strawberries and cantaloupe along with her regular diet of bamboo and leaf eater biscuits.    

One of her favorite spots to rest is setting atop a large boulder, while leaning over onto a log set up about 10 feet off the ground.

   

Ya Ya's partner is Le Le.  He is a bit more adventurous and doesn't mind the outdoors.  You will see him climbing to the top of the outdoor platform sometimes going up the rope to get there.  He also enjoys the pool while Ya will look on with disbelief.   

His name means, 'Happy, Happy', He was born at the Chongquing Zoo, China and was mother reared.    He has a very rounded face and his ears fan out a little more horizontally. They say he is a ferocious eater, preferring bamboo over most any other food item.  If, he is eating a fruitcicle, a specially prepared item by the keepers, where they use nutritionally formulated fruit juices and pieces of fruit frozen together, he will chomp away at it, breaking it up so he can get to the fruit inside.  True to his character of being a ferocious eater, if you watch him on the live cam  he will hold a piece of food in both paws then alternate between his left and right paws eating away.  He is pretty laid back and pretty much lets it all hang out when he falls asleep.     

I think this photo of him with all of his toys laying around him, pretty much says it all.  Be sure to stop in to enjoy this wonderful pair of pandas at the Memphis Zoo, China Exhibit.

Le Le and Ya Ya videos

I've been wanting to do a feature on Ya Ya and Le Le the two Memphis Pandas for sometime now.  Although this isn't it, I can at least give you a little preview, while I put together the story.  Here are two great little videos, the first one of Le Le the male, enjoying an apple and the second one is Ya Ya the female trying to get to her treats through the green monster. 

Thanks to a panda pal on flickr for these great little videos, bob2cleo 

Wolong looks to the future

In sad news, Mao Mao the last remaining panda that had been missing from the recent May 12 earthquake at the Wolong Giant Panda Center, was found Monday and dug out Tuesday, crushed by a wall of her enclosure as the river nearby swelled with landslide debris.  She was nine years old and had mothered five cubs at the breeding center.  She is pictured here, but not sure which of her cubs this is with her.  The most recent cub of 2006, Xi Dou survived.  During the furneral, He Changui, Mao's only keeper since she was 3 years old, stepped forward, crying and placed two apples and a piece of bread by the covered grave.  There were three minutes of silence.  Returning from the grave with red eyes, He said, "It's like you could say something and she would understand, "he said. "If you were happy, she was happy too." 

Looking at this photo, you can really see how expressive her eyes were.  Rest in Peace, Mao.

Wolong plans its future...

In a article released today, China Daily reports that an expert team who appraised all of their options decided that "it was not appropriate to rebuild the damaged low-lying pandas shelters and research center at the present site because the aftershocks may bring secondary disasters, such as the landslides."

Li Desheng, vice director of the Conservation and Research Center of the Wolong Nature Reserve for Giant Pandas said "the new center would still be located within the Wolong Nature Reserve, deep in the hills north of Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan Province, whose humid climate was favorable for bamboo, pandas favorite food."

That now makes the total of captive pandas living at the center at 47.  Six were sent to Ya'an Panda Base, which suffered less damage in the earthquake, and the eight that were airlifted to Beijing for the Olympics.

Male giant pandas have scars to show their love

The BBC or British Broadcasting Corporation is showing a special on the courtship and mating of the Giant Panda tonight at 2100 called Giant panda sex secrets revealed.  Not that I care for the title, but the two males pictured here, show some serious injuries to their ears, which could have come from courtship battles.  These two are not featured in tonights show, but wanted to show what could be a consequence of these battles.  Male Giant Pandas have to battle for the right to mate with a female in the wild. The female panda comes into an 'estrus' period for only a couple of days and she decides who she will mate with.  It has been recorded in China that even if a male wins a battle over other males to mate with a particular female, she may still refuse him and go off onto another mountaintop to seek out another male to mate with. 

Both males are wild born. Halan who lives in the Wuxi Zoo in China is 24 years old and Gao Gao is around 18 year old and lives at the San Diego Zoo in California.

Keep the news coming on the earthquake at Wolong!

As with every other major event, whether it be positive or negative, as time goes on, follow-up information becomes more and more difficult to find.  As is the case with the earthquake that severely damaged the Wolong Giant Panda Center.

Of course the good 'happy' news is out there all over the media.  For instance the eight, 2 year old pandas that were airlifted to Beijing right after the earthquake recently, made their public debut.  It is a moving story of how they were quickly rescued, moved to the city of Chengdu while awaiting for air transport to take them to the Beijing Zoo for the Olympics.  Now they are safe and being well cared for. Their photos are all over the news, it is the kind stories they make movies out of.  It is a positive outcome from this tragedy.  Then we have the animated panda movie that has just come out, Kung Fu Panda.  I will be going to see it, I'm a panda fanatic, afterall.

But I haven't forgotten about the Wolong Center.  There is still one missing female adult panda, Mao Mao, the 12 cubs, and can only estimate 20-30 adult pandas and their stafff at Wolong, along with all of the wild pandas that were affected by the earthquake.  They are still meeting daily challenges at every level.  The staff is living in tents, cooking over fires and using these same fires to keep warm.

The four American zoos that have pandas on loan from China, are posting information as they receive it from their websites and Pandas International has been providing up to date info on how they have been helping supply food, medicines and other items to people and pandas, thanks to the generous donations of their members.

It will be a long, challenging ordeal for those who are working in China to help the pandas survive this event.  And, at some point, the scope of evaluating the damage and its impact on the future of Giant Pandas and their release into the wild has to be looked at again.  I hope the discussions about this topic are made public. There are many who are willing to continue to help monetarily, volunteerily and professionally.  Only by keeping the information flowing out to the public as to what the needs and goals are, will it generate a continued helping hand by those outside the panda realm who want to help in any way they can.   

China celebrates Childrens Day with pandas

Its the start of a new week and in case you didn't realize it, we are in JUNE now!   Living in Florida, well this means you either have to get up super early to enjoy the day or hang out at dusk but with lots of bug spray, which I absolutely hate.  But if I didn't make use of it, I would have been carried off long ago by those pesky critters.

Am out of work again,  so what's new you ask, isn't most everyone?  So, I am directing my energies to finding a permanent job where I can do something for my favorite species the Giant Panda.  Am sure my Horticultural background can contribute in some way to their survival.  That is where my focus will be tweaking my resume and sending it out by mail, email, efax, and so on to every panda connection I can find.  This means leaving Florida, which actually I think would be a good thing. 

The Chinese celebrated International Children's Day over the weekend, strange I don't remember hearing anything about it, in the U.S. The Chengdu Panda base celebrated by letting the children in free.  Many of the children who went, had never before seen a Panda and were quite taken with the beautiful animals.  The panda in the photo is 4 month old, female panda Xing Ya. This sentence just made me cry after reading it.   "Yang Lu, who is in grade one of the school, lives in a tent with her parents because their house collapsed in the earthquake. The eight-year-old was timid and spoke little. But she burst into laughter when she saw pandas eat bamboo and apples and play on a swing."   I only wish every child could have a chance to experience the pandas.  God Bless the Children.