cont...

Wednesday, March 28
On Monday when I was watching Lun Lun and Po for data collection, I thought I was going to get lucky and see a play session. Po woke up from a nap and followed his mom around for awhile swiping and biting at her back legs to try to entice her to play. She stopped a few times to interact with him briefly, but her focus was clearly on food. As soon as the keepers gave her some fresh bamboo, she settled down to eat and easily fended off Po’s play invitations. Po then had to make do with his toys. First, he tackled his weeble a few times. This is a weighted cylinder, which rocks back and forth but cannot be knocked over. We have a really big one that Yang Yang likes very much and we have a small one that is just right for Po. It’s not as good as playing with mom, but at least it sort of “fights back”. Next Po played with his ball. He chased it, hugged it, and reclined on his back holding it with all four paws. After all that play, he found a tasty piece of bamboo, which he carried onto the climbing structure to eat.
Rebecca Snyder, PhD
Curator of Mammals

Monday, March 26
So I've been working here a few months and have started noticing differences in the personalities of the giant pandas. Yang Yang, for example, seems to enjoy interacting with his keepers. He also seems to love the training sessions as it combines two of his favorite things, interacting with the keepers and eating his biscuits. As with all the animals here, we use positive reinforcement in order to train all the behaviors. When the animal does the behavior we ask, he/she gets a reward and in the case of the giant pandas the reward is his/her biscuits. Also, when eating bamboo and biscuits for that matter, Yang eats slowly and calmly.
Lun Lun is a different story. She is all about food, she still has to feed Po after all. She tears through her bamboo, trying to consume it as quickly as possible. And she seems like she is never full, like a bottomless pit. She isn't as interested in keeper interaction, unless it involves biscuits. When training, she wants us to go quickly so she can get her biscuits quickly. If we don't go fast enough, she'll just walk away.
Xi Lan seems to love the keeper interaction regardless of whether there is food involved. He's very playful and tries to get us to play with him by calling to us using a bleat vocalization which sounds similar to the bleat of a goat or sheep. He seems to love his toys as I always see him playing with them at least once a day. He isn't as good at training as his parents, yet, but he is still young. He's like his dad when he eats bamboo, slow and calm. Po is not interested in keeper interaction, unless of course, we have biscuits. He will come up to us to see if we have anything for him and if we don't he will just walk away. He's too young for more complex training; we are still working on mastering "shift" with him. When eating bamboo, he will try to pull a piece to the top of the structure if he is in one of the dayrooms. He is not quite strong enough to break the large pieces like the adults do. So, he sticks with the leaves and the small stems. As one might imagine, he loves to play, usually when Lun is trying to sleep.
On an unrelated note, Happy Birthday to my younger brother!
Shauna
Keeper I, Carnivores

Friday, March 23
We have recently started offering Po sweet potato along with his biscuits. Initially, he refused to take the sweet potato. Then he took it from us, but spit it out. So, we started smearing a little banana on the sweet potato. This tricked him for a few feedings, but then he started sucking the banana off of the sweet potato and spitting it back out again. Just today he actually consumed a few pieces of the sweet potato without banana. Time will tell whether he will take after his mother and dislike sweet potato permanently.
Heather
Carnivore Keeper III

Lonette glad to see you again & for the s'caps, {especially the last one, looks like Lun is looking back at cam~ you're right, Po is getting so big & he to me, looks so much like his heroine, pretty Mama Lun }
they are playing together more when I get a chance to check on them & then if cam works for me.~


H A P P Y ~~~ E A S T E R ~~ weekend to everyone

Po contemplating how many ways he can play with the tire

4/5/12~Po Plays...~5.05 min <Video link

..1st he scent/sprays {like Lan} the structure & tire before the minute mark & then tries playing on the tire, then the pearls, finally jumps off the structure onto Mama Lun, his real-play-passion.
She plays with him some, pinning him down wrestling ~ & when he escapes ~ he acts like he's visiting at the window {maybe Xi Lan}

Panda Cub Updates

Monday, April 16
Pool season has begun with the pandas. With the warmer weather setting in, the pandas like to cool off with a little dip in the "cement pond.” This was illustrated yesterday by Yang Yang, who was put into one of the outside exhibits in the morning when the temperatures were quite comfortable. As the morning went on, the temperatures started heading up to the low 80's. This is beautiful for us, but it is a little warm for a panda. Especially one who is used to the air conditioning. He was fine all morning, right up until the time we decided to bring him inside because it was getting warmer. He also decided that it was just a little too warm for him as well. Instead of shifting inside for us, he decided to slip in the pool for a little relief. If you can picture someone completely kicked back and relaxing in a hot tub, then you can envision what Yang Yang looked like in the pool. He was even kicking his feet lazily as he was relaxing. He decided that ten minutes was enough time to relax, so he got out and finally shifted inside for us, dripping water and tracking mud as he went along.
Kenn
Lead Keeper of Carnivores

Friday April 13
Is it fall already? What great giant panda weather we’ve had recently. The pandas have been spending a lot of time in their outdoor habitats, and are sometimes out there for the entire day. Po, as usual, has been planting himself in his favorite spot over the drain. Fortunately for him, there’s a drain in each of the habitats! The other day I was surprised to see Lun Lun sitting next to him in the moat of Habitat 2. This isn’t one of her preferred spots, probably because there usually isn’t any bamboo down there. But the other day, Po had either dragged a piece of bamboo into the moat, or one had fallen down there and Lun was happily eating it. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen Lun spend time in the moat, aside from taking a quick walk down there or when retrieving a cub. I wonder if Po was worried that Lun was going to steal his favorite resting spot. No fear, Po, it’s still yours. Your mom just wanted the bamboo.
Megan Wilson, Ph.D.
Assistant Curator of Mammals

Monday, April 9
We’re getting to the time of year when we start changing the species of bamboo that we offer the pandas. Before, we were offering them yellow groove (Phyllostachys aureosulcata) as their primary species, the species they eat the best. And we were offering them henon (Phyllostachys nigra henon) as their secondary species, the species they don’t eat as well as the primary species. We always offer them at least two species to provide them with a bit of a variety and because they may eat one species better one day and another species better the next. Recently we switched to offering them bissetti (Phyllostachys bissetti) as their secondary species instead of henon. We are hoping to slowly phase out the yellow groove so that we don’t deplete our reserves. As with most other species, the pandas have their good days and their bad days. Some days they LOVE the bissetti, other days not so much. We also recently tried introducing black (Phyllostachys nigra) as a secondary species. The pandas barely even gave the black a second glance. We’ll keep trying to find a secondary species that they actually eat. Po doesn’t seem to care what species he gets just yet. When he’s hungry, he’ll eat it.
Shauna
Keeper I, Carnivores

Lun gets in the pool and enjoys herself, and Po comes to watch her.

cont....

Hi Queenie.....That Po cracks me up with his antics. haha Love seeing him, and also him mom of course. Hope you had a nice birthday. Sent you a BD card, hope you got it sista! Donell

& & Happy Birthday to you, too Donell ~{twin sista}~hope it was a gr8 one ~
~Po is growing up so fast, and mastering so many zoo procedures now {our little Kung Fu Cubbie Po}~I don't always get the cam & he's in the moat sometimes when I do, but love to see him playing more & more with Mama Lun when I catch them. He can be so unsuspecting, like her pushing him in the pool last month, but he's learning all the time

Queenie

Pandaholic went to visit Mei Lan in China last week! Photos and some video here for you to enjoy. He's so big now and still beautiful!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13551606@N08/page2/