Posted on 21 August 2010 @ 00:04 in Stress Busters
I never tire of telling the story of how a six-month-old giant panda cub in San Diego Zoo led to my love for giant pandas.
Hua Mei – the first giant panda cub to be born and to survive past 3 months in the Western Hemisphere. Her name, a combination of China (華) and USA (美), represents the partnership that resulted in her birth – China, which loaned her parents to the San Diego Zoo, and USA, which provided the place for her birth.
It’s 10 years since I saw her public debut on the San Diego Zoo website’s pandacam. I went to see her in person in May 2001. And had to wait 6 years before seeing her again in September 2007; by now, she was living at the Wolong Panda Centre in China. Since then, I’ve seen her every year, and hope to be able to see her every year till … whenever.
I know her American fans were sad when she left San Diego Zoo in 2004, but it was good news for me because it meant she would be nearer to me, and cheaper for me to go and see her.
I’ve yet to see her on her birthday. So I do the next best thing – celebrate her birthday, and what she means to me, online.
Love you, Hua Mei. Happy birthday.
Picture taken during my March 2010 visit
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Posted on 20 August 2010 @ 13:02 in Stress Busters, Travels
I flew to Guilin this morning. The flight was at 6:25 a.m., which meant I had to leave for the airport at 3:30 a.m.! Insane, but the KL – Guilin flight was not the only flight at that hour. LCCT was crowded with people waiting to fly to Macau and Colombo, too.
So, 4 hours later, I arrived in Guilin and after another 90 minutes, I’m in my hotel room. I’d booked the Guilin International Hotel, it’s actually the second choice, after the first choice was fully booked for the dates I’m in Guilin.
I selected both hotels based on proximity to the Seven Star Park. As it turned out, Guilin International, altho more expensive, is the better hotel cuz it’s closer to the Park. How close? The lady at the front desk said if I wake up early enough, I can jog there. Haha, do I look like a jogger to her? For sure, I’ll walk there.
Seven Star Park is the reason I’m here in Guilin. There’s a very precious resident inside the Park – my adopted panda, Feng Yi. She was moved here last December with another panda, Mei Xin. Her move to Guilin means I can’t see her when I go to Bifengxia. It also means I have to make separate arrangements to visit her. But on the plus side, it means I get to visit and know another city in China.
My hotel room is NICE. I’ll post pictures later. Right now, I need to go look for food.
Yes, the fact that I’m posting means the hotel offers free Internet access in all rooms. Most hotels in China do. I’ll also be posting more on my blog during this trip cuz there’s no access to Facebook and my blog is linked to my Facebook account. If you’re reading this, please post a comment so I know the link is working.
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Posted on 2 August 2010 @ 18:19 in Stress Busters
July is always a happy month for captive giant panda breeding – it’s the month when the annual giant panda birthing season begins. By the third week of July this year, four cubs had been born, including twins in Beijing Zoo and one each at Bifengxia Panda Base and Chengdu Panda Reserve.
Amidst the happy news, there was sad news.
A friend sent me an email on 23 July 2010. Her short message – “Very sad, #20 is dead.” – was accompanied by a link to a news item that a panda named Quan Quan in Jinan Zoo had died suddenly on the night of 22 July 2010.
In this, and all subsequent news reports, the panda is identified as Quan Quan. If I hadn’t received my friend’s email, I would not have known Quan Quan was #20. To many of us, she was better known as #20. This was the name I first knew her from Panda Nursery, a National Geographic documentary about swap rearing. And to me, she will always and forever be #20, or in Mandarin, 二十号 (Er Shi Hao).
Subsequent news reports confirmed that #20 had died from inhaling toxic fumes that came through a connecting pipe from a nearby former air raid shelter. It was a cooling system used by many Chinese zoos unable to afford proper air-conditioning for their animals in summer; in this case, Jinan Zoo used it to cool #20’s indoor enclosure. This time, however, it proved fatal; new tenants of the shelter were disinfecting the place, perhaps not knowing that the fumes would be piped into another enclosure, and not just any enclosure, but one that housed a member of the rarest of rare, and endangered, animals.
A question hanging over #20’s death is whether the zoo knew about the new tenants disinfecting the shelter the evening of 22 July 2010. The zoo does not own the shelter, so the tenants might not have been obligated to inform the zoo. But #20’s death has highlighted the lack of proper facilities and resources, as well as the management of animal care, in many zoos in China. Personally, I hope her tragic death will not be in vain but will lead to new and stricter animal care regulations put in place in all zoos.
That evening, to commemorate #20’s passing, I had watched my copy of Panda Nursery. Of the three black and white stars in the documentary – #20 and her twins, Lin Her and Lin Hai (renamed Xiang Xiang and Fu Fu) – two are no longer with us. Besides #20, her elder twin, Xiang Xiang, had died in 2007. He was the first captive giant panda to be released back to the wild, an experiment with a tragic ending when he was found dead with injuries believed to have resulted from fights with other wild-born giant pandas. His twin, Fu Fu, is living at the Fuzhou Panda World, in Fuzhou, China.
Panda Nursery shows #20’s twins each spending time with her separately up to the age of three months (when one was with her, the other would be in the nursery) when they were both presented together to her. From then on, she had to take care of both cubs. Initially, she favoured one over the other, but eventually got used to both of them. However, by the time she was used to having two cubs, it was time to wean them from her. The documentary has a poignant scene showing them together one last time. Here is perhaps the most touching moment from that scene:
Translated caption: “This is #20’s last time with her twins”
Rest in peace, #20, and Xiang Xiang. Your deaths will not be in vain.
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Posted on 12 July 2010 @ 23:51 in Stress Busters
Bifengxia Panda Base
10 August 2008
It is one of the highlights of a visit to Bifengxia Panda Base (and Wolong Panda Centre, before the 2008 earthquake) – to have your picture taken with a one-year-old giant panda cub. There is a fee for this rare experience, but it’s money well-spent, not just to get up close and personal with one of these cuties, but to contribute to the research work done here (for that is where the money goes).
Once the photographs are taken, most visitors eagerly turn to their digital cameras, to go through the shots that were taken just minutes before, to remember the experience afresh and to see if any shots are good enough to be enlarged for display back home.
I must admit I did something similar when I had my photo op with a cubby on 9 March 2008. The next day, I offered to take pictures for a couple of friends during their black and white photo op (they agreed, even tho’ they had their own cameras but, hey, the more cameras the better). After the session was over, and while they were going through their pictures, I followed the keepers down the path back to the one-year-old cubs’ enclosure, and ended up taking what I believe is a rare picture of a giant panda cub safe in the arms of her keeper.
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Posted on 6 July 2010 @ 10:46 in Stress Busters
Giant panda cubs are usually born between July and September every year, so they’re off to a great start this year with the birth of twins at Beijing Zoo on 2 July 2010. The proud parents are Gu Gu (father) and Ying Hua (mother). If Gu Gu’s name looks familiar, it’s because he has been in the news a few times for fighting off unwelcome visitors into his den.
For a long time, there was the mistaken understanding that giant pandas only give birth to single cubs. However, once captive breeding began in giant panda reserves like Wolong and Chengdu, the panda vets and keepers observed an unusually high number of giant panda twins being born. They also saw how one of the twins, usually the weaker one, would be rejected. Again, through observation, they saw why the rejection occurred – giant panda mothers can only care for one cub at a time, and would choose the stronger of the two. As a result, swap rearing was developed, in which the rejected twin would be taken away to be cared for in the nursery, and then swapped every few days with the twin that’s with the mother so that both would get to spend time with her. Then, around three months old, both cubs are presented at the same time to mummy.
And so it was with the twins born to Ying Hua on 2 July 2010 – she rejected the younger cub. But the panda team there was prepared; since Beijing Zoo is not a giant panda reserve and does not have the necessary facilities, the cub was flown to Bifengxia Panda Base where it was found to be female and to weigh 109g. In addition to being cared for in the nursery, she is also being fed frozen colostrum from her grandmother, Ying Ying, during the first three days after birth.
It is just as well that this little one was rejected by mother Ying Hua and taken to Bifengxia Panda Base. Following the wonderful news about the first giant panda cubs born this year, came the sad news that the older cub, the one mother Ying Hua did not reject, failed to survive beyond 20 hours.
The circumstances of the cub’s death are very sad – due to its tiny size, and possibly the mother’s inexperience (she’s a first-time mother), it was crushed to death. According to news reports, she had fallen asleep and when the cub cried, had woken but was confused where the cub was. It was behind her and got crushed when she turned around to look for it.
The news reports also suggest that Ying Hua may have been stressed from the attention focused on the birth of her cubs, hence her confusion. In the wild, a giant panda mother about to give birth would find a hollow tree as the birthing den, but under captive circumstances, there is no such luxury. This is not to suggest captive breeding is bad because overall, captive breeding has increased the survival rates of twin cubs, but unfortunately, incidents such as this sometimes happen.
Both happy and sad news within days of each other. But they only serve to remind us how precious these little lives are.
Here’s the precious younger twin, currently in the nursery at Bifengxia Panda Base:
Correction
According to fellow Pandas Unlimited member, lovecatbear, this was what happened:
“On July 3 at 4:45 a.m., Ying Hua was sitting in a corner of the room with the cub under her chin when she heard the cub crying again. She turned and her head hit against the wall, accidentally crush the cub. The keepers heard the screaming, but as Ying Hua sat with her back to the surveillance camera, they didn’t know what actually happened. When they saw the cub fall off to the floor at 4:55 a.m., motionless, it’s too late.”
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