Carly for the new pictures of our wonderful Mei Lan, & so good to *see* you~~in his profile shot without fluffy cheeks, he looks like Yang, wonder if he is as big as Daddy:dunno: thank you to Pandaholic too, for these gr8 shots of our handsome boy-he sure will father some precious panda cubbies someday! Too bad future Grandma Lun can't help raise 'em & spoil 'em, hehe-she's pretty busy with brother Po.
so happy Pandaholic got to see him again ~I'm not always able to catch the cam working when I can check in to it, so hope if you or some others catch anything, love to see them & thanks again for sharing Mei Lan, I think about him so much & how much fun he was on the forum {back when we thought he was a girl~he is adorable as ever!!!}

Panda Cub Updates

Monday, May 7
I know we've mentioned bamboo shoots before, but I thought this was worth repeating. Pandas LOVE shoots. Any time we need to keep them occupied for a few minutes, we give them a shoot and they're content. Po is a shoot fiend. He steals shoots from Lun Lun. He'll eat any leftover pieces he can find. Even if he's in a deep sleep, he'll wake up for a shoot. The other night during Beastly Feast (the Zoo's black tie fundraiser), I gave Lun and Po a rather large shoot in order to keep them happy for the few extra hours that they'd be on exhibit. What I was expecting to happen was that Lun Lun would go right for the shoot, but to my surprise she went straight for the bamboo. Maybe she didn't see it. Po certainly did, though. When he saw it, he dragged it a few feet before he dug into it. My guess was that he was trying to bring it to the top of the structure but it was just too heavy and large for him. This thing was probably 7-8 feet long, at least 4 inches in diameter and had to weigh at the very least 15 pounds if not more. It took Lun quite some time to realize the shoot was there, but when she did, there was no pulling her away from it. At the end of the 3 or so hour event, when it was time to bring them in and set them up for the night, Lun came in happily, ready for her fresh bamboo. Po, on the other hand, did not come in right away. When I looked at the camera to see what he was doing, I saw him back at the spot where the shoot was nibbling on any leftover bits of shoot that he could find.
Shauna
Keeper I, Carnivores

Wednesday, May 2
You might have had the hilarious pleasure of watching Po interact with a new enrichment item given to him on Monday: a black plastic trash can. He was initially pretty wary of it, but soon came down to get the biscuits and sweet potato I had hidden inside. I was unable to watch him interact with the new toy after this point, as I had a couple of other cranky pandas in need of fresh bamboo. Thankfully though, right at the same time Rebecca came in to collect behavioral data on Lun Lun and got to watch Po become adventurous. He grabbed the trash can (which is a little bigger than he is) and hauled it up the climbing structure in Dayroom 1 to the top where he is usually perched. At some point the trash can then flopped over onto his head. I am really bummed that I didn't get to see this but it was very evident that Po enjoyed the new toy because the damage was pretty extensive to have come from a 'little' cub! The next day I gave the trash can to Xi Lan (our demolition panda) who didn't fail to disappoint me as he proceeded to destroy the thing by using it as a perch! That poor little trash can never stood a chance!
Jen
Keeper I, Carnivores
Watch out Po, Mama Lun's coming {from cam}
There went trash can & Po :lol:
4/30/12~Po Playing With Trash Can..~32 sec <Video link
..until Mama Lun wants to play with him, he is so cute how could she resist. ~~Just was able to catch the cam seconds before it went off.

cont...
Monday, April 30
It's arrow bamboo (Pseudosasa japonica) season again! This time of year our giant pandas are typically eating this species of bamboo. It's very distinct in that it only has leaves at the very top of each culm. This species tends to fill the pandas up more so we don't have to offer as much which is nice! The keepers have a love/hate relationship with arrow. We love that the pandas love it, but we hate how much of a mess it tends to make. Because the pandas primarily eat just the culm, there are more 'shards' (the outside green part of the culm that the pandas peel off) to pick up. Po was introduced to this species last year so it's not new to him. However, when it was offered last year, he wasn't eating bamboo yet so this is the first time he's gotten to try it and like the rest of the gang he loves it! Just now he ran over and stole a piece Lun Lun had just prepared. Now that he's getting older we're starting to notice a little more jostling over food between the two. Lun Lun lets him win some fights, but certainly not all as she routinely puts him in his place!
Jen
Keeper I, Carnivores

Wednesday, April 25
If you have read my previous updates, you know that I love to watch giant panda mothers play with their cubs. My second favorite thing to watch is giant panda mothers and cubs eat bamboo side by side. Po and Lun Lun did just that while I was collecting behavioral data on them on Monday. Po is becoming more and more skilled at eating bamboo and is spending more and more time eating. He tried to convince Lun Lun to share a large piece of culm, which she had already prepared for eating by breaking and stripping. He reached for the culm and whined to his mother. She wasn’t convinced and continued to eat the culm herself, but he eventually managed to get a piece of it for himself. Lun Lun is expert at processing culm and can handle larger pieces than Po. He likes to take advantage of her efforts whenever he can. With continued practice and increased size, he’ll be as proficient at feeding on bamboo as his mom in another year.
By the way, when Lun Lun was a subadult and she and Yang Yang spent lots of time together, she used to swipe pieces of culm which Yang Yang had already stripped. She did it frequently and Yang Yang never seemed to mind. So, she’s used to doing the swiping and is not as good at sharing.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Mammals :-*

cont...
Monday, April 23
All of our animals at the Zoo are weighed on a regular basis. This allows us to monitor their health and ensure that they are eating and getting just the right amount of food to maintain a healthy weight. The pandas are no different, only they get weighed twice a day, every day. This is because their weight can change up to 20 pounds in a day! The adults are used to this routine. They know they get weighed in the morning and in the evening and they usually go right on the scale as they know there will be a reward waiting for them. Po is slowly starting to get the hang of this. It used to be that we would get Lun Lun's weight while distracting Po with a biscuit and then just wait for him to walk onto the scale to see what Lun was doing. But now that he's a little more independent, he's become less likely to follow Lun onto the scale. Now to get his weight, we use the same method we use for the adults. We put some biscuits on the scale and shift him into the den while saying "scale." At first he wasn't really sure what to do. When I would shift him into the den with the scale, he would walk up to the mesh waiting for his biscuits. But recently it seems he has learned that there will be treats waiting for him and he'll make a beeline for the scale. Our little Po is starting to learn! And just in case you want to know, he's not so little anymore. Po's last weight was 37 kg, which is just over 81 lbs!
Shauna
Keeper I, Carnivores

Friday, April 21
The older and bigger Po gets - he's over 80 pounds, people! - the more comical it gets when Lun Lun becomes frustrated with her baby. We no longer ask Lun Lun to "go get her baby" because Po is getting to big for her move on and off exhibit.
Well, let me rephrase this - we don't ask Lun Lun this anymore, but she will do it on her own accord and it's pretty funny to watch her trying to drag an unrelenting cub around who's fighting her the whole time. But if there's one thing Lun Lun has no patience for, it's waiting for a shift door to open when she knows yummy fresh bamboo is on the other side. She'll give one warning bleat and then she's on a mission to grab her cub even if he realizes she is coming and hurries after her - she still drags him! What's hilarious is when Po couldn't care less if he's being dragged and takes the piece of bamboo he's eating along with him on the 'trip'. Oh Po!
Jen
Keeper I, Carnivores

Wednesday, April 18
There is not much to report today. Everything has been going quite normally. There was one thing that Po did to himself that made me smile, though. As I was trying to shift Lun Lun and Po inside the dayroom for the rest of the afternoon, Po decided that that would be a great time to go back down in the moat to his grate. I tried and tried to call him to come inside, but it was all for naught as he made himself comfortable. Then suddenly, the sky opened up and it began to pour. He then decided that his indoor climbing structure retreat would be a much better place for a little R&R than his grate. I have never seen Po run quite so fast to come inside.
Kenn
Lead Keeper of Carnivores

Carly gave us this link for a video of Mei Lan (she's busy with fledges just now) ;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FleND6DZ ... re=g-all-u

and to you.....

macdoum & & carly for the video of our magnificent Mei Lan~so good to see him so happy ~ the gr8est 3 sons & each one is so unique

Panda Cub Updates

Monday, June 25
I hope everyone enjoyed watching my Google Hangout below! I had a enormous amount of fun chatting with all the kids from the different schools and camp groups! And boy did they have some awesome and intriguing questions! I look forward to many more Hangouts - hopefully I'll get to chat with some you who are reading this blog!
Everything in PandaLand is pretty status quo. Usually in the summer we can let the pandas be outside for a couple of hours first thing in the morning until it gets too warm. But for the past couple of days - and I suspect the next few - we'll keep them inside as it's already in the mid 70's at 7 a.m. These pandas are sensitive to the heat, as their wild counterparts live in cool mountainous areas of China. Once the temperatures reach 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit, it's too warm for the pandas and we bring them inside to cool off in our nice air-conditioned dayrooms and off-exhibit dens. The bears react to the hot weather differently. Yang Yang (our very melodramatic big guy) gets annoyed when it's too warm and instead of picking a shady spot (or the pool) to cool off while waiting for us to set him up with fresh food inside, he walks around and gets himself even more hot and tired! Silly panda. Lun Lun can tolerate the warmer weather much easier if she has yummy food to eat. If the bamboo is good, she almost seems oblivious to the heat; otherwise she's smart and finds a way to cool off. Xi Lan uses a bit of common sense and finds a shady spot to cool off and take a nap (he usually stays away from the pool). And that leaves little Po. He usually is down in the moat, in direct sunlight, panting away but doesn't want to make the big trek back up out of the moat and into the building. He'll sit out there for a long time even after we make it completely obvious that there's a way out of the heat! Lun Lun will even go down and check on him but he remains in his spot. Eventually he always comes in and relaxes in the much more panda-friendly temperatures in our dayrooms. At least he doesn't get himself all worked up like his dad!
Jen
Keeper I, Carnivores

Friday, June 22
Yesterday’s enrichment for the giant pandas was food enrichment. This means we offer the pandas a food item that they usually don’t get, or offer familiar food in a way that’s unique to them. Jen and I chose to give them frozen fruit and sugarcane. I placed Yang’s frozen apple on the drinker in the dayroom. He noticed it immediately when he went into the dayroom and grabbed it from the drinker on his way by. The apple was whole and he proceeded to take a bite. But he clearly realized right away that there was something different about the apple. He pulled the apple out of his mouth without chewing the piece he had bitten and then took a close look at it. When he finally took another bite, it was very small and he chewed very slowly. I suspect it felt weird on his teeth, or maybe that he even had a little brain freeze! But Yang’s reaction was exactly what we like to see with that type of enrichment. He got to eat something he loves, but in a different way and it also increased the time that it took for him to process his food.
Megan Wilson, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Mammals

Wednesday, June 21
Po is becoming a bamboo eating machine. He is spending more and more time feeding on bamboo, though he still fits in plenty of naps. Although he likes to take bamboo away from his mom, especially culm that she has already stripped, he is becoming proficient at stripping culm himself. He often companionably sits next to Lun Lun to eat, but sometimes he seems to prefer to eat away from his mom. He often carries bamboo up into the climbing structure, and the other day he snuck down from the climbing structure to eat while Lun Lun was taking a nap. I’m not sure why he does this. Lun Lun usually doesn’t take bamboo away from him, and if he waits until she’s done eating all the best pieces are gone. However, unlike his parents and big brother, Po is not choosy about his bamboo, yet. None of the cubs have been selective about bamboo initially. That has developed over time, and I expect Po will become more discriminating as he matures. He is still nursing, and so he might not need to be selective about the bamboo he eats now because he still obtains a lot of his nutrition from his mother’s milk.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Mammals

June 19 back to May 7 {last posted on this thread} ~for updates and videos ~one with school children asking questions of panda keeper Jen
http://www.zooatlanta.org/1212/panda_cam
~~~~~~~
ZA video bamboo eating~1.34 min < Cute ZA Video link
Po tries to steal Lun's boo

6/19/12~Po & Lun Have Fun~5.14 min < Video link
They play and chase and climb around the dayroom~and at one time Po gets his foot caught in the treat bucket hanging on the structure, but he calmly pulls it out with his front paws~they are adorable together.


Precious Po


footsie stuck in bucket
too cute
whoopsies

Sweet Xi Lan

6/26/12~The Luv of Lan~4.04 min. < Video link
Xi Lan is playing with toys, and boo and running around the dayroom entertaining some dear fans like he does~at one time he is actually leaning up against the window, such a sweet boy so like his Daddy Yang!

playing tether ball
:lol: playing with aqua barrel toy
love that Xi Lan