< month 12
Monday, August 6
WOW!! Mei Lan is 11 months old today, makes me wonder where has the time gone? She now weighs in at 52 lbs. She is about 47 inches long (this is more of a guess then truly accurate measurement due to her wiggly little personality). With greater precision we can say that she is 27 inches around at the chest, 29 ½ inches around at the belly and 21 inches around at the neck. Her feet have grown to be 6 inches in the front and 5 ½ inches in the back.
Next month we hope you can make it out for her week long birthday bash. Check out all the details on the Mei Lan's Birthday Celebration Week page.
Kate Roca
Carnivore Keeper II
Friday, August 3
I think Little Miss got a little over stimulated this morning, and did not know what to do. She had too many options of what to play with. Should it be this toy, or how about that one, wait there's mom yet, or how about doing my acrobatic skills at the top of the structure (just my mental dialogue while watching her)? She went on for a good length of time running, rolling, grabbing, etc. before she fizzled out and needed to rest. We finally had a chance to purchase some new enrichment items again the other week, so Mei Lan has had different things to explore since then. One of the toys today is just a simple traffic cone that we have not had in a while because Lun and Yang like to ripe them apart. Both probably like it because of it's softness and the ability to sink their teeth into it, which has also been seen in other objects. The other toy, which I call a "browse hanger", is something that I made just over a week ago, which many have seen on panda cam already. IT is based off a design used at other institutions for other animals. Often, the new enrichment items that I have developed are based on designs that already exist, but need to be modify in a way that is suitable for pandas to use, which was the case here. The original plan was to place bamboo pieces within it, since it is basically braided firehose, to present bamboo in a different way, and make Yang and Lun work for it a little more. But, it has been nice to see them just interacting with it as a play toy.
Joseph T. Svoke
Giant Panda Keeper II
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Mei Lan goes to new heights of goofiness |
Wednesday, August 1
One year ago, no one knew for sure quite what was going on. Lun Lun had been going through the motions of a pregnancy, but looked like she'd start eating again. Ultrasounds were "different", but we had nothing decisive. We were watching for any signs of whether to initiate a birth watch or call things a pseudopregnancy for another year. Well, we all know how THAT story ended. So now, approaching Mei Lan's one year birthday, I'm confronted with what is rapidly evolving from "cub" or "baby" to "BEAR."
And the little bear is developing quite the personality. She is very intrepid, and often journies into new areas without batting an eye. When we gave her access to the larger habitat for the first time last Friday, she marched right through the shift door like she owned the place. She is independent like her mom, and also exhibiting a stubborn side , like Lun is wont to do. But she also shows some of her dad's traits, which may be coincidental, since she's never with him, but some of the things she does are just SO goofy, and SO Yang Yang, that the panda guides and I agree there's some daddy in Atlanta Beauty. Case in point, Mei Lan and mom were out early this morning for a visit from the governor. Lun Lun wandered over to eat, and after I roused Mei Lan from a brief nap by calling her from the research deck, she climbed to the top of her structure, and promptly got hung up in the fork of the tree. One of my favourite pictures of Yang Yang is of him, butt in the air, dangling from the fork of a limb on his play structure. Seeing our little bear this morning in an almost identical pose, it's virtually impossible not to make the comparison...
Jay Pratte
Giant Panda Keeper III
Monday, July 30
Mei Lan is regularly spending time in both outdoor habitats each morning. She has been working on her climbing skills in the larger habitat. We are enjoying watching her explore and hope that you are too. Usually, around 11:00 a.m. she and Lun Lun go into the dayrooms to escape the heat and humidity for the remainder of the day. Mei Lan weighed 23.4 kg (51.6 lbs) this morning.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
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Mei Lan, rock climber extraordinaire |
Friday, July 27
Mei Lan had a big day today. She went into the large outdoor habitat with her mom for the first time. She explored almost every part of the habitat. She climbed the rocks and wooden climbing structures, checked out the moat, and sampled some of the plants in the exhibit. She seemed to enjoy herself very much and the zoo’s visitors definitely enjoyed watching her explore. Lun Lun and Mei Lan will have access to the both habitats most mornings from now on.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
Wednesday,
July 25
This week we were able to make and use new enrichment items with the pandas. Earlier this week we added a browse hanger into Dayroom 2 that JT made from fire hose. It has been in the exhibit for a couple of days, and Yang Yang and Lun Lun seem to ignore it. But today, Mei Lan found it and decided it was definitely worth investigating. She started up top in the tree and messed around with the chain. Then she climbed out of the tree to see it from the ground. She found it to be quite fun to bite, pull, and hang from. We also added a tire bed to Dayroom 1. This is something I made by weaving fire hose in the same fashion that the hammock is made and attaching it to a tire. Mei Lan did not seem as interested in this item as the browse hanger, but we plan to give it to her overnight to see if she takes a liking to it.
Kate Roca
Carnivore Keeper II
Monday, July 23
One of the less attractive, but nevertheless interesting, aspects of giant panda biology is mucous stools. Giant pandas have lots of mucus producing cells that line their digestive tract. This helps sharp bamboo fragments to pass through their system without doing damage. Occasionally, a giant panda will pass a stool that consists entirely of mucus. This seems to be the result of excess mucus sloughing from the digestive tract. All captive giant pandas are known to do this. So, it is assumed that wild giant pandas do the same, but no one knows for sure. For a few hours prior to passing a mucous stool, the giant panda tends to rest curled up. Giant pandas normally refuse to eat or move much during this time. After the mucus is passed, the giant panda’s appetite and behavior returns to normal.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
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The girls both enjoy the watering hole |
Friday, July 20
So, last week I mentioned that we were starting to de-baby proof the outside yard that Mei Lan and Lun Lun have had access to. This week we are starting to toddler proof the second outside exhibit that Lun has not been into since Mei Lan's birth. Mei has never gone into this yard, as it has been Yang Yang's domain. As before, we are just checking to make sure that there are not areas that are dangerous for the cub, or any small holes that she can get stuck in. As many moms probably know, everything new is exciting and needs exploring, and pandas are no exception. There is no timeline yet set for Mei's first exploration into the second yard, as there is work still to be done, but it will be sometime soon.
Joseph T. Svoke
Giant Panda Keeper II
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Mei Lan, the nature lover... |
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Yang Yang was a sight yesterday! |
Thursday, July 19
Boys will be boys!! That is what Yang Yang has decided to demonstrate over the last couple of days.
During a late event Monday night, Yang Yang destroyed part of the climbing structure in Dayroom 1 (the hammock room). He ripped one of the logs out of the ground, making it unsafe to put Lun Lun and Mei Lan into the room until it was fixed. Jay and I ended up having the secure a new log onto the structure and reburying the log back into the ground to make it safe again.
Then yesterday, some of you witnessed Yang Yang on panda cam playing with a 5 gallon water cooler jug. Originally we had hid some biscuits inside of it to make him “work” for his food. But once all the biscuits were out he decided to chase it around the dayroom for about 20 minutes. In the end, the jug was useless to use again due to he destroyed it, but I was happy to see him put it to use.
Kate Roca
Carnivore Keeper II
Wednesday, July 18
Oooooooh, SO close! After a nursing bout this morning, Mei Lan weighted in at 22.3 kilograms, which converts to just over 49 pounds. I thought we might have hit the magic 50 mark.
For anyone that was watching Pandacam this morning, you might have watched Lun Lun sleeping, and then suddenly shoot up awake and take off. When I poked my head out the back door of the building, I noticed that our grounds crew was doing their usual excellent job and leaf-blowing around the area. Unfortunately, in their zeal to do a good job, they were using the blowers on the drive behind the panda building, and that proved just too much for Lun Lun. As soon as I managed to stop them, she calmed back down again.
Over the past few years we have noticed that the pandas react dramatically to particular sounds. A garbage truck can go rumbling past and elicits no response, but often the sound of a low-flying helicopter scares them. Lawn mowers don't faze the bears, but leaf-blowers and weed-trimmers send them running. And usually crowd noise doesn't bug them, but occasionally very loud or shrill groups will cause a reaction. So we watch carefully, and try to manage the pandas so that any noises that need to occur (since the grounds people need to leaf-blow, and horticulture needs to keep things trimmed) do so when the pandas are inside and more insulated from sounds. One would think that they would get used to it, and to some extent they do. But all it takes is seeing poor Yang Yang scared up a tree, unwilling to come down and eat or sleep for several hours, and it's clear why we try to minimize this type of environmental stressor.
Jay Pratte
Giant Panda Keeper III
Tuesday, July 17
If you watch Lun Lun feeding on bamboo, you may notice that she tends to use her left paw to grasp the bamboo more then she uses her right. Yang Yang, on the other hand (pun intended), tends to use his right paw more. I’ve noticed that giant pandas we study in Chengdu also tend to use one paw more than the other when grasping bamboo. We are all familiar with handedness in humans, but you might not know that hand/paw preferences have also been studied in non-humans primates, like chimpanzees, and in other species, like domestic cats and dogs.
It is estimated that 80% to 98% of the adult human population is right-handed, making handedness in humans a population-level pattern. Whether nonhuman animals possess population-level hand/paw preferences that are similar to human handedness patterns is much debated. Individual hand preferences are characterized by the use of one hand more frequently than the other at the level of the individual. Several authors report evidence that primates and other mammals, including domestic cats and dogs, display individual hand/paw preferences in food reaching, feeding, and foraging. Other authors report that these species posses population-level hand/paw preferences. There is some evidence that rearing history and age-class, but not gender, affect hand preferences in non-human primates.
We decided to study whether giant pandas possess individual or population level paw preferences and whether paw preferences are affected by rearing history, age, or gender. To do this, we videotaped 20 giant pandas while they were feeding on bamboo. Each subject was videotaped during five different feeding bouts for at least five uninterrupted minutes of feeding. Then we watched the tapes and recorded total time spent grasping bamboo with each paw, and number of reaches for bamboo with each paw. We have analyzed the resulting data for a subset of the subjects, and so far it seems that giant pandas have individual paw preferences but not population level preferences. That means individuals favor the use of one paw over the other, but overall there do not seem to be more right pawed giant pandas than left pawed giant pandas. However, these findings are preliminary, because we have more data to analyze. We also have not yet examined whether rearing history, age or gender play a role in giant panda paw preferences.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
Monday, July 16
Mei Lan and Lun Lun had a nursing bout at about 2:30 this afternoon. They usually nurse sometime each day between 12:00-5:00 p.m. We assume they also nurse overnight and/or in the early morning, but the afternoon session is the one we see. During this time, they usually nurse in their hammock. This seems to be Lun Lun’s favorite nursing spot and she looks very comfortable there. Each nursing bout is around 10-20 minutes in length.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
Sunday, July 15
All was quiet at the Panda exhibit today. Lun Lun and Mei Lan are took their morning nap on the structure outside, while Yang Yang curled up in the tree in dayroom 2. When the temperature started rising, Lun Lun and Mei Lan headed into the dayrooms, while Yang Yang spent time in the back dens and outside. It was the daily panda shuffle.
Kate Roca
Carnivore Keeper II
Saturday, July 14
We've had a number of positive results lately from our training efforts. Yang Yang, as always, loves to participate, and is doing great with everything. These past couple weeks though, it's been the girls who've been the stars.
Lun Lun is doing very well in her recall study. When Bonnie and I moved to the large, six light-and-button box, I expected a tremendous chunk of regression (essentially "backsliding") to occur. Instead, she did great right from the beginning. This past week we have been able to add a few more of the necessary parameters. We can target Lun away from the box, and have her hold her nose to the target until we release her to push a button with the "light" command. She has taken on both of these new parameters well, and continues to score high passing grades. We are a little concerned she may get miffed (like Yang frequently did) when we add the delay (thus the "recall" period), but I think she'll pull through it all with flying colours.
Mei Lan is starting to come off exhibit at the end of the day when she is called, which is a huge bonus. Approaching fifty pounds and developing her adult teeth, this is the safest method for everyone involved, and we can reward her for her efforts. As well, she routinely goes and sits on the scale when we place her shiny silver bowl of treats on it and tell her "scale", just like her mom and dad.
Hooray for smart bears!
Jay Pratte
Giant Panda Keeper III
Friday, July 13
With Mei Lan development going so well, we have been able to start to de-baby proof the exhibits. This morning we pulled some of the "straw pillows' out of the moat in the outside habitat. Mei has been traveling into the moat more often by climbing down the rockwork and exploring everything down there, then climbing back out. When Lun Lun can't seem to find her, she climbs into the moat to look for Mei. When Lun sees that Mei is just fine, she leaves Mei to be. We are not that worried either since we know that Mei now has good strength and balance.
Joseph T. Svoke
Giant Panda Keeper II
Wednesday, July 11
Mei Lan continues to thrive under Lun Lun’s excellent care. Mei Lan weighed 21.4 kg (47 lbs) this morning.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
Tuesday, July 10
We’ve heard from the staff at the Chengdu Research Base that another of their giant pandas has given birth. The female’s name is Shu Qing and she gave to birth to healthy twins that were born about five hours apart. In the wild, giant pandas normally only raise one cub when they give birth to twins. There seem to be two main reasons for this: 1) it’s difficult for a wild mother to produce enough milk for two cubs, because wild giant pandas live on bamboo which is not rich in nutrients and takes time to find and process, and 2) the mother has trouble providing the intensive care needed for two tiny cubs at once. Giant panda cubs have to be held by the mother nearly continuously for the first couple of weeks and some mothers cannot keep track of and care for two cubs simultaneously.
Staff at the Chengdu Zoo solved this problem for captive mothers in 1990 by swapping twins with the mother. So, the mother cares for one cub at a time while the other cub is kept in an incubator. The cubs are swapped every few hours. Because captive mothers are provided with food and do not have to spend time traveling searching for food, they are able to produce enough milk for two cubs. The mother also only has to care for one cub at a time. This technique resulted in the survival of the first set of captive born cubs in 1990. Since then, the technique is widely used by giant panda facilities. If both cubs are born healthy, they both usually survive using this technique. This is how Shu Qing is caring for her cubs at the Research Base.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
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Mei's dental inspection |
Monday, July 9
Mei Lan passed another milestone last week. On Friday, which happened to be her 10 month birthday, the keepers noticed that one of her lower canines was discolored. One of the zoo’s veterinarians, Sam Rivera, examined Mei Lan’s teeth and discovered that she has started to lose her deciduous (baby) teeth. She has already lost some of her incisors and the tips of her new permanent teeth are visible. The discolored tooth that the keepers noticed is turning brown because the new permanent tooth underneath has cut off the blood supply. Giant panda cubs typically have their full set of permanent teeth by the time they are about one year old. Consequently, they usually start to feed on bamboo at about 13-14 months of age.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Carnivores
Sunday, July 8
What mom wants, mom gets. Due to the heavy rain this morning, all the bears were kept inside the dayrooms. Mei Lan and Lun Lun got dayroom 2 (the one with the tepee-shaped structure), while Yang Yang spent his time in dayroom 1 (the hammock room). Once Mei Lan finished her morning playtime she settled in at the top of the tree structure for a nap. After Lun Lun had eaten her fill, she decided to climb up to her own favorite sleeping spot only to find Mei Lan already there. So what does a 260 lbs. bear do to get her spot back? She lays right on top of Mei Lan! Mei Lan, for her own comfort and safety, abandoned the location and climbed down to the ground where she then decided to chew on bamboo while mom slept. Nothing like a rainy Sunday afternoon…
Kate Roca
Carnivore Keeper II
Saturday, July 7
I guess that all the days that Jay and Kate had to work 10-hour days by themselves, while I was in China, is being paid back. In the department, we still have not gotten back to a normal schedule like we had before I left. Once I came back, the opportunity for others to finally take vacation time arose, and they have been taking advantage of it. Most of the four weeks that I have been back have consisted of partial or full weeks of 10-hour days. Much like the last two days, I have had to work by myself, which means not much time to do anything but cater to the needs of the pandas. Luckily, we have had some "Arrow" bamboo which both are enjoying eating through out the days. If the keepers do not have bamboo that the pandas will eat, it makes for LONG days. Yang and Lun will beg in any fashion that they can think of to try to get the keepers attention. Unfortunately for them, they get disappointed when they discover that the fresh bamboo that they just got is the same as it was before. These types of days are the ones that you can be thankful for enrichment, because if used properly it can help distract them and divert some of the frustration that both can have. But today, they are happy eating and sleeping like good pandas, so that makes me happy too.
Joseph T. Svoke
Giant Panda Keeper II
< month 12
