On a warm September morning at the San Diego Zoo, Mei Sheng, a frisky
2-year-old daredevil of a giant panda, dangles upside down from a wooden
jungle gym. Within seconds, he rockets to the top of an enormous elm
tree and scrambles to the edge of a branch—which heaves dangerously
under his weight. Just when it appears that he’ll be pitched headlong
into the throng of visitors below, a volunteer coaxes the creature down.
Giant pandas have been drawing crowds since the first panda cub, Su-Lin,
was brought to the U.S. by the socialite and adventurer Ruth Harkness in
1936. Communist China’s first gift of a panda pair, Ling-Ling and
Hsing-Hsing, to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., in 1972 only
fueled the desire for a close-up look at these popular animals.
Just a few years ago, giant pandas were on shaky ground. Their primary
enemy? Humans. Once fairly widespread in Asia, pandas began losing their
forest homes to people who logged and farmed the region. By the 1980s,
it was believed that only about 1,000 bears were left in the wild. By
the 1990s, half of their habitats had been destroyed. Today, wild pandas
are confined to six mountain ranges in southwestern China.
In captivity, attempts to breed giant pandas largely failed. Females in
U.S. zoos often seemed unable to conceive. The fragile cubs that were
born rarely survived. Now, for the first time ever, we have two happy,
strapping cubs at once—one at the National Zoo, the other in San Diego.
And in the wild, a census released last year indicates that there is
better news than anyone dreamed: There are nearly 1,600 pandas in the
mountains of China—40% more than previously were thought to exist.
How the panda escaped extinction.
Helping these enigmatic bears both in the wild and in captivity has not
been easy. Donald Lindburg, head of giant panda conservation at the San
Diego Zoo, says they present “a challenge unequaled by any other
species.” They are carnivores who eat mainly bamboo. They are elusive
animals who sport bright coloring. And they are slow reproducers who
mate just fine in the wild but are turned off by the conditions of
captivity.
“When we started working with the Chinese, there were just 104 giant
pandas in captivity worldwide,” says David Wildt, the head of
reproductive sciences at the National Zoo. “There were some successes
with artificial insemination,” says Barbara Durrant of the San Diego
Zoo, but they were often a matter of luck. Almost a decade ago,
Washington and San Diego undertook an ambitious plan with their Chinese
colleagues. The goal was not only to gain data about pandas but also, as
Wildt says, “to convert that scholarly information into new babies.”
That commitment has paid off. The best proof of the galloping advances
in science has been the births of cubs, raising the number of captive
giant pandas to 185. Much of the success can be credited to researchers
who recently have begun to unravel a number of biological and behavioral
paradoxes.
One breakthrough came in discovering the way panda babies are nurtured.
Panda mothers have twins nearly 50% of the time. In the wild, the mother
focuses on one baby, leaving the other to die. But in captivity, experts
have perfected a technique in which the twins are rotated between the
mother and a nursery, allowing both babies to thrive.
Another advance came when researchers began to gain a better
understanding of the panda mating system. “People always say these
animals are such poor breeders,” says Carter Roberts, president and CEO
of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a conservation organization. “But in
the wild, there are very randy pandas.” Male pandas are able to pinpoint
with sharp accuracy the moments of greatest female fertility.
Unfortunately, Barbara Durrant concedes, “all our current chemical
analyses are not as good as a panda nose.”
Nevertheless, we’re learning how to coax nature along. Durrant, in fact,
performed the artificial insemination of the panda Bai Yun in 1999 in
San Diego, which resulted in the birth of the female Hua Mei. She is the
first panda ever born in this country to survive to adulthood. More
recently, with Durrant’s help, Bai Yun and the male Gao Gao became the
parents of Mei Sheng and, in August, the cub Su Lin (named after the
first baby panda ever seen in the West). Today, Durrant flies around the
globe with her insemination kit to help captive pandas in China, Japan,
Mexico and other U.S. zoos.
Boosting captive numbers helps to pad an insurance policy against
extinction. “The captive population is so valuable because the wild one
is so vulnerable,” David Wildt says. Computer models suggest that when
300 pandas are living in captivity, it would be safe to reintroduce them
to their natural habitats.
Not out of the woods yet. But
there is another challenge to be met: Preserving enough undisturbed
forest to which pandas can return. According to the WWF, the picture is
looking brighter. Currently, the group provides money and expertise to
the Chinese government to protect the bears. Carter Roberts says efforts
to preserve their habitats have increased significantly in the last few
years. Fifteen years ago, there were just 13 panda reserves. As Beijing
has grown more aware of the global desire to see pandas survive, the
figure has shot to 60.
At the same time, however, China’s mushrooming population exacerbates
the ongoing tension between human and animal habitats. So, even as
scientists work diligently on panda biology, citizens and governments
must try to preserve, enlarge and link those wild places. Today, each
zoo in the U.S. exhibiting a panda pair pays the Chinese government
about $1 million a year earmarked for panda conservation. And as we
zoogoers flock to special exhibits to catch a glimpse of pandas at play,
we are helping to ensure their future. While they are not secure yet,
our commitment to these creatures may be the secret to their long-term
survival. “People will protect what they care about,” says San Diego’s
Don Lindburg. “And we care about what we know.” Adds Carter Roberts:
“Our goal is a world for our children and grandchildren in which there’s
room for wild pandas. We’ll need to work hard to achieve it, but we’re
optimistic.
Vicki Constantine Croke is the author
of “The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First american
Explorer To Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal” (Random House, 2005).
What You Can Do
Become a panda parent. Several
zoos and conservation groups accept financial contributions through
“adopt a panda” programs. By symbolically adopting a panda at
Washington’s National Zoo (www.nationalzoo.org),
for example, you can help pay for its care as well as conservation
efforts in China. When you donate through the World Wildlife Fund’s
Panda Adoption program (www.worldwildlife.org),
you’ll receive a Personalized Adoption Certificate and a
computer-desktop image of your adopted panda. All of the funds raised go
to saving the pandas through innovative practices, such as providing
biogas stoves—which burn manure instead of wood—to villages near panda
forests.
Got bamboo? Giant pandas have
giant appetites and can dine on bamboo up to 16 hours a day. Zoo Atlanta
(www.zooatlanta.org) and the
Memphis Zoo (www.memphiszoo.org)
accept donations of bamboo from private landowners.
Get to know the pandas! By
visiting pandas in U.S. zoos, you are helping to ensure their survival.
If you can’t see the young pandas in person, be sure to check out the
Panda Cam at the San Diego Zoo’s site (www.sandiegozoo.org)
on the Web.
