Pandas Live on

Bringing in the New Year with pandas

Happy New Year everybody!  I am wishing that all of you have a great year ahead and that it brings you plenty of good things in life.

If there is anyway to start out a New Year, its enjoying the antics of giant pandas.  If you are living where the weather is cooler right now, you will find the pandas to be much more active.  Especially after a fresh snow fall. 

Check out this video of two youngsters having a blast in the snow.  They were recently moved from the Wolong Nature Reserve, where they were born to their new home in a nature reserve at Nanshan Park in Yantai, Shandong Province, China.   Source: PressTVGlobalNews 

 

Holiday Season brings a gracious gift to the National Zoo panda program

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian of the national zoo may not be aware of the wonderful news that was posted in the Washington Post this morning, but you can be sure all of their panda fans are extremely grateful. 

A big Thank You goes out to David M.Rubenstein who has reportedly donated 4.5 million dollars toward the zoo's panda reproduction program.  As a regent with the Smithsonian, he heard of the zoo's difficulty in acquiring the much needed funds to keep the reproduction program going.  

“When I heard about it,” Rubenstein said, “I thought . . . ‘We have been residents of Washington for a long time. We took our children to the zoo when they were younger. I’m a Smithsonian regent.’ And I thought it would be a nice holiday gift for the zoo and people in Washington.”

You are certainly right about the donation being a nice holiday gift, Mr. Rubenstein.  For those of us who keep up with the National Zoo Pandas, maybe your donation will turn the tide for a new cub or two in the coming years.  May you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!

$4.5 million gift to support National Zoo panda efforts  
By Michael E. Ruane, Monday, December 19, 3:02 AM, Washington Post

The National Zoo plans to announce Monday that philanthropist David M. Rubenstein is donating $4.5 million to its giant panda reproduction program, bolstering the zoo’s ability to maintain one of Washington’s most popular attractions at a time of economic strain.

The donation, which Rubenstein described as a holiday gift to the zoo and the city, will cover the tab for five years of giant panda reproduction efforts and for other panda research here and in China. The pandas, on loan from China, previously had their stay extended through 2015, but the zoo had been having trouble securing corporate sponsorship for a program that has delighted and captivated zoogoers for more than a decade.

Now, zoo officials can stop worrying about fundraising for the pandas and turn to what they consider a far more important task: The often frustrating effort to produce panda cubs. The zoo has said that 2012 is probably the last year it will try to achieve a pregnancy with its current pair of giant pandas.

Officials plan to announce the donation during a news conference at the zoo to be attended by Rubenstein; the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Zhang Yesui; the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Wayne Clough; and National Zoo Director Dennis W. Kelly.

Zoo officials, privately, expressed excitement about the development, but they declined to comment officially before the formal announcement.

Rubenstein is a co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, a global asset-management firm. He is also a member of the board of regents at the Smithsonian, which operates the zoo, and chairman of Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is our day of Thanksgiving in the U.S.  So, I would like to give thanks that our dear giant pandas are still with us on this beautiful planet. 

A big Thank You to all of you who follow the pandas and enable the world to not forget their plight.  I can't imagine our world without them. I think they are very magical and through them the world will always be a better place. 

Received this great postcard from a friend who just returned from China and thought their pose fit in with this special day, so I made a graphic with them.  Thanks for the card, Angela!

 

Panda Census Continues, new technology helping researchers

Rising high above the hustle and bustle of a busy and expanding China are where our dear pandas live now.  Having been forced to move into these small regions due to China's population growth, it takes some special people willing to climb and explore these mountains to conduct the latest panda census. 

MSNBC went along with a couple of the researchers to show us how the census is coming along how the use of gps and other technological advances are helping.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here are a couple of maps thanks to the WWF, that show previous habitat and current map zoomed in showing areas the giant pandas now live.

We have a Holloween cubby!

Thanks to two panda pals in the know, we have great news about giant panda mom, Fei Fei who is part of the wild release program at the Wolong Panda Reserve, giving  birth on Monday, October 31, 2011.

Annette, who you know as YingYing816 on YouTube sent us this photo below, taken earlier this year and Jeroen Jacobs who has the very informative panda website GiantPandaZoo provides the links for the complete story. Thanks to both Annette and Jeroen!

Wolong Giant Panda "Fei Fei" rare late autumn calving

At 15:50 on November 1, 2011, source: CNR

Zhongguang Wang Ya November 1 message (Correspondent Yi Heng Tao Takatoshi correspondent) correspondents today from Ya'an Bifengxia Base Wolong China Giant Panda Protection Research Center has learned that at 13:57 on October 31, Wolong China Giant Panda Research center of the female giant panda, "Fei Fei" in the Ya'an Bifengxia Base birth to the next Aberdeen, Aberdeen, now home safe. Usually in the Spring breeding giant pandas in heat, calving from July to September, this "Princess Princess" in the upcoming winter season litter the phenomenon is very rare, and this is probably the last year the world one child born panda cubs the.

"Princess Princess" was born in 1995, before the birth in the fetal 4 5 earners, including the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games opening day of the birth class "Olympics." June 17 to 18, "Fei Fei" respectively with "Topol" and "Lo Lo" had a natural mating, began in late October, the gradual emergence of prenatal behavior, research centers, the staff immediately stepped up, "Fei Fei" the monitoring. At 11:00 on the 31st, "Fei Fei" began efforts to select, 13:34 breaking the amniotic fluid, 13:57, wrapped in a thin layer of smooth membranes of pups born. Strong maternal instinct, "Fei Fei" quickly picked up the pups into his arms, gently licking pups body. With the loud chirping sound coming pups, control room, also sent a burst of cheers, calls from pups to determine their viability very preliminary.

 

As the Wolong Giant Panda Protection Research Center, starting from this year's full implementation of the "eugenics" concept, vigorously carry out field-based training, and previous years, this year all of the research center in Wolong panda cubs are wild training base in Ya'an, or Bifengxia base of comparison testing ground in the field of training was born. "Fei Fei" is produced in the outdoor environment under the pups, the staff can only be installed at various points in the training of field monitoring cameras to observe the birth of pups and mother with Aberdeen situation, yet the sex pups can not be confirmed. Since the end of October to early November has been very cold temperatures Bifengxia, the opposition of the environment of the "Princess Princess" and the pups will face enormous challenges.

Author: Heng Yi Tao Takatoshi

Hold on to your Pumpkins!

It's Holloween here in the U.S. today and as you can see from the graphic below, you had better be careful if you have any pumpkins around because those lovable giant pandas enjoy playing with them. 

Stay tuned we will some photos and videos from recent trips to China, by other panda pals.  Some will be from Bifengxia and Chengdu, but we may have photos from other locations too, need to get caught up. 

Be sure to check out Daniels Special Halloween Webcam page because he always go all out with lots of fun animations featuring ghosts, dancing pumpkins and all kinds of goodies!

Fu Hu video shorts from his first year

Panda Pal, Xi Shan of flickr just got back from seeing Fu at Zoo Vienna in Austria, so thought I would put together a little video as he just celebrated his 1st birthday this last August 23. 

 

Thanks to Zoo Vienna on YouTube, Lupoforme of YouTube and Xi Shan for the videos and photos.

Chengdu tells us Mei Lan is a male

What can I say, just heard about this and thanks to Zoo Atlanta for posting an update right away.  Here is the Zoo's statement. 

Thursday, September 22
We recently received some surprising news from our colleagues at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding about Mei Lan, the first giant panda cub born at Zoo Atlanta. She is actually a he, and it seems that he was incorrectly sexed when he was a cub. Mei Lan has lived at the Chengdu Research Base since February 2010, and our colleagues there have noted the appearance of testes.

Giant pandas are normally sexed as infants during early health checks. This can be difficult to do correctly, and it helps to have some practice. Mei Lan was sexed during his first veterinary exam when he was 19 days old by a staff person from the Chengdu Research Base and Zoo Atlanta staff. This is later than would normally be done at the Chengdu Research Base, and it’s more difficult to do if the cub is more than a few days old. We waited longer to do Mei Lan’s first exam, because Lun Lun was a first-time mother and we didn’t want to do anything that might disrupt the excellent care she was providing for Mei Lan.

Close examination of the anogenital area is needed to determine the sex of a giant panda cub, and a male’s testes do not descend until he is over 3 years old. Prior to this, there is no obvious external cue to sex. As a result, young giant pandas are occasionally sexed incorrectly, which was apparently the case for Mei Lan. We plan to recheck the sex of our other young giant pandas, Xi Lan and Po, during their next scheduled physical exams.

Although it’s strange for us to think of Mei Lan as a male, the good news is that this does not change how he was cared for and managed while he was growing up here in Atlanta. We all recall that his birth on September 6, 2006, was a monumental event for Zoo Atlanta, the City of Atlanta, the Giant Panda Species Survival Plan, and thousands of you, his fans, from around the world. He was the only giant panda cub born in the U.S. in 2006, and there was nothing we would have done differently if we or the staff from the Chengdu Research Base had known sooner that he was a male. He still would have been transferred to the Chengdu Research Base when he was 3 years old, and he will still be an important part of the breeding population there. So while this news does come as a big surprise, we’ll all just work on getting used to the fact that Lun Lun’s and Yang Yang’s firstborn was a son, and that son may have a bit of an odd name (Mei Lan roughly translates to Atlanta’s Beauty) for a male. I don’t think he’ll mind. I’ll bet Lun Lun knew all along. Too bad we couldn’t just ask her!
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Mammals