Celebrating the Giant Panda Program at Zoo Atlanta (2022)

I love giant pandas. I love giant pandas, especially Yong Yong and Lin Lin. But I do, I love them so much. I got involved because at that time I was a graduate student at Georgia Tech in the School of Psychology, and Dr. Terry Maple, who was my advisor at Georgia Tech, was the director of Zoo Atlanta, and it was really his vision and passion to bring pandas to Zoo Atlanta. It was one of his dreams. No one in China was really studying panda behavior. It just wasn't a field of interest, really, in China. They were studying a lot of other things about pandas, but not so much behavior. So I got this idea that I was going to go to China and study pandas. And I thought it was kind of crazy, and it probably wouldn't happen. I thought, I'll just tell Terry about it, and he'll be like, you need to come up with some other idea for your dissertation. That's not going to work. And I should have known, right? Terry loved big ideas. He was a visionary, so of course he thought it was an amazing idea. I got the feeling from, I mean, his face lit up. I got the feeling that he was like, oh man, I've just been waiting for somebody to say they wanted to go to China and study pandas. So very quickly, that crazy idea became a reality, and I found myself on my way to China to study giant pandas. And I, to this day, owe so much of my career to that and just how welcoming those people were to me. Oh my gosh, I'm getting choked on. Don't put that part on. Let me collect myself. You know, there's this really famous Chinese proverb of a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and that's how I felt like with them arriving. It was actually many steps along the journey because we had done a lot to prepare for their arrival, but I knew that it was this momentous thing was just, it was going to be this incredible journey that was unfolding with them arriving in Atlanta. And now we got to share them with the city, and that was really exciting. It was crazy. Even before they came, everyone talking about all the giant pandas that were arriving. And then after, you know, all the bus and the commotion, the public, everyone wanted to be here, come and see the giant pandas. And I remember the long lines. I remember having to make reservations so we could all go and see the giant pandas on the public side. But it was a big moment for Atlanta when they, when we knew we were getting giant pandas and when they arrived. So we've learned some really interesting things about giant pandas from the pandas here at Zoo Atlanta. So we did some interesting research on giant pandas that was unique on perception and learning. So we did the only study that's ever been done on to see if giant pandas could see in color and found out that they could. And I say we, but this work was done by a lot of different scientists, including several students from Georgia Institute of Technology. We also had some interesting research done by Georgia Tech graduate students on what kinds of cues giant pandas are using to locate food and found that spatial cues are really important. And then did some further research looking at like spatial abilities of giant pandas and finding out that males, giant pandas have better spatial abilities than females. We were the first ones to discover that. Finding out that young male pandas spend more time playing than young females and what that might mean for their development and how they behave as adults. One of the things that to me has been fascinating when we got this pair of giant pandas, we had all these plans, ideas, we wanted to learn about giant pandas and the research. And one of the areas of interest was studying the mother and cub interactions. Not a lot was known about the relationship between mothers and cubs when I started my research. So just how important that bond is between a mother and cub, because if you think about it, because giant pandas are solitary, that cub is just with its mom and then eventually it goes off and it's on its own again and then the only other time it's going to encounter other pandas in its life is for breeding and then if it's a female, taking care of her own cubs. So we learned a lot about that bond from Lun Lun taking care of her cubs and then we were able to study other moms and cubs in China and realized that what we were seeing with So Malon was Lun Lun's first cub and we didn't know what kind of a mother Lun Lun was going to be and giant panda cubs require really intensive care from the mom, so we really wanted Lun Lun to be a great mom. For the birth of Malon, I was part of the birth watch team and I was there for almost the entire labor that she was in, it was an extended 35 hour labor. So Malon's labor was unique in that it was extremely long, at that time it was the longest labor, giant panda labor ever known, so that was pretty nerve-wracking because we were all kind of up all night, all day and then all night waiting for the birth. Right before she gave birth, she did this huge roar and we were all like, you know, what does that mean, and then she gave birth and did it again and we were just like, is she going to be aggressive, we didn't know what kind of mom she was going to be. She hadn't had a cub before, so she seemed kind of surprised and she, you know, kind of was looking and pawing him and she moaned at him, which is not a friendly giant panda sound, so that was very scary and so I was standing just outside the den, basically holding my breath, hoping that she was going to pick him up and care for him, and she started to smell him and lick him and then I think she started to realize what he was and so she picked him up very gently with her mouth and when I saw her do that, it's a very normal thing for a mother giant panda to do, so I thought, okay, we're going to be okay and she did pick him up gently and then she sat back with him and started to hold him in the normal way that a panda would with her cub. Everyone was so excited and hugging and crying. And then she was a great mom after that, so that was a huge relief that she was such a good mom after that long wait for him. And after the first night, we realized that Blue Moon had everything, we just had to kick back and watch. She took everything in stride, you know, she's had male cubs, she's had female cubs, she's raised two sets of twins, and she's just like a hard-working mom who was a great mom to all of those cubs. She amazes me every single time. After Mayland, we were able to do ultrasounds and we were able to diagnose the pregnancy via ultrasound and more importantly, we wanted to know the growth rates of those babies in utero, so we were doing a lot of ultrasounds via training, via positive reinforcement. So we're getting our hands through the bars, looking at her belly and looking for the baby. So we have to trust not only her, but also the keepers. But that interaction between the keepers, Blue Moon, and me doing the ultrasound, that's probably one of my favorite moments. So we had written protocols in place, we talked about what we would do if there would be twins, we had incubators set up in the giant panda building, we had all the supplies that we needed if we had to human raise a twin. The person who was helping us from the Chengdu Research Base just arrived that afternoon, so of course he was tired. He came in to check on Loon Loon, we were like, everything's ready, we're good to go, why don't you go back and get some rest, like take a nap. We got it, and then she gave birth quickly, but we were like, we still got it. And lo and behold, here comes number two. Just a minute or two later, and we were like, oh, we should go get him. We're going to need some help. We were in a, that went light as a sheet. We were able to retrieve the second cub that was born really quickly. Loon Loon did try to, she was interested in that cub, and she was already cradling the first one, and she did try to retrieve it and pick it up, and she wasn't able to. It's very hard for pandas to hold both at the same time, and so that cub was on the floor, and we were able to retrieve that cub and then put it in the incubator. We were very fortunate that we had our Chinese colleagues here, and they taught us the twin swap technique. You know, giant pandas, when they have twins, it's very difficult, it's very rare that they will raise both twins. So they need help, they need a little bit of assistance, and at that time, when for the twins, we spent a lot of time in the panda nursery. We were doing, we had one baby in the incubator. When that baby got hungry, we had to go get the other one that was with her, give her a treat so we could access the baby, and then get the one from the incubator, give it to her so it could nurse. Obviously very nerve-wracking since, you know, they're so fragile those first three days, and with two of them, and learning how to swap, and Lulu learning how to swap, it was a pretty hairy first week. But once our Chinese colleagues were comfortable, I think we were very successful. So while I've been here for two different sets of twins at Zoo Atlanta, I was really active in the most recent set of twins. It was really such an amazing experience to be able to watch Loon, she's an incredible mother, but also see this amazing process and participating in rearing these cubs, twins. And we were, we are very proud of the work we did with both set of twins surviving and thriving and doing so great. So in China, they have this really special tradition of waiting until giant panda cubs are 100 days old before they give them to someone. Our baby panda cub here at Zoo Atlanta is named Mei Lan. We did have big celebrations for those naming ceremonies, especially for the first cub, Mei Lan, and so we had a big party, right? We would invite our friends and colleagues from China to those ceremonies. We also invited city officials, the mayor and other key figures in the city to come to those celebrations. And just a lot of the community was able to come and share that with us as well. So it really was a tremendous celebration for the city of Atlanta, but then also for our partners in China as well. Zoo Atlanta has sent five of our giant panda cubs back to China, and I have been very fortunate to have been involved in the transport of all five animals. It was a very, very long trip. It was very fun, very interesting trip to China. The bears did way better than I would have ever imagined. They had a much easier time than the people did accompanying them. They took it all in stride. The city of Chengdu, I think, was about 8 million people at that time. It was the biggest city I'd ever been in in my life. So it's this huge, bustling city, and the research base was just this sanctuary on the edge of this city. It is absolutely beautiful, has always been absolutely beautiful. They've only made it more beautiful over the years. But you would drive through the gates of the research base, and it is just this lush, filled with trees. You could hear birds right away. The bamboo is so tall in parts of the research base that it forms like a canopy over the path, and it really was just this magical place. Some of the habitats are just lots of huge trees. Some of them, you can't even see the panda that's in there. They're so full of greenery. It has a special smell. Like, it smells like a bamboo forest there. And then you see pandas. It's one of the greatest places in the world. I felt really good about leaving Ivan there, because I knew they cared about him just as much as we do. We knew they were going to a great place. We knew they were going to a great program when you think of the bigger picture of giant panda conservation. And to think that maybe some of the babies from our pandas may eventually be part of reintroduction programs of conservation of this species. I love that partnership that we have. It's not just beneficial for the panda, but it's beneficial for us, right? Because we can learn from those keepers. They can learn from us. They always receive us with open arms, and they're always taking care of us, always showing us around. We discuss, talk about giant pandas, learn from each other. So I really look forward every time I get the opportunity to visit the panda base. Yeah, Yang Yang is, he's the best. Like, everyone loves him. He's always a fan favorite. He's always a keeper favorite. He's been my favorite since I started. He's always willing to train, always willing to interact. He loves attention. We laughingly call him a social panda, because, you know, they're solitary, right? But he loves attention. He's totally playful at times, even at, you know, 23, 24 years old. If you laugh, that gets him really worked up. So the more we laugh at him, the more, like, he's just like, yeah, I'm going to play, and I'm going to do crazy stuff. So they'll keep laughing. He's just a big goof. Zoo Atlanta is really a leading resource for education organizations really all over Georgia and beyond. And that resource, we're a resource for, you know, K through 12, for our elementary kids, all the way up to high school, but also for our university programs. We partner with many different universities, both locally and beyond. And that allows us to really reach a whole variety of different levels. And we welcome almost a million people through our gates every single year. And each one of those people that come through our gates, I almost guarantee, the number one thing they want to see are the giant pandas. And we have a panda cam that people all over the world can see and experience the interesting behavior of giant pandas. And we know people are really engaged. The people that love them are the reason that we're able to conserve them, right? They give money. They give time. That sort of thing that allows us, places like Zoo Atlanta, to send conservation funds to China for wild pandas. Seeing something up close and personal makes you care about it more. So when we talk about conservation, it's often, it can be very doom and gloom. You know, animals are declining. Biodiversity is declining at a rapid rate. Giant pandas are one of those species that used to have a much, you know, before people had a, there's fossil records showing that they lived throughout different parts of China. Their range gradually got smaller and smaller over time. So now they're found in just three provinces of China and they were an endangered species. There were like less than 1,600 of them left in the wild for many, many years. So when we have an example, a story like the Giant Panda Conservation Program, it really offers a gateway into what's happening and what can happen for species all over the planet. The most recent census that was done showed the population had increased. There were more than 1,800 left. So they are no longer classified as endangered. They're now classified like one step below endangered as vulnerable. And that is a fantastic conservation success story. So when people start to learn about giant pandas and they learn what's been done to, you know, really research them and understand their behavior and biology, and then use that information to better manage them both in zoos and in the wild, and then use that information further to develop partnerships and collaborations to help protect them in the wild. They see how, okay, it's not all doom and gloom. We can make a difference for wildlife. There aren't a lot of conservation success stories out there, but we need to celebrate the wins that are there and learn from those and see that it is possible, right, to bring a species back from the edge of possible extinction. And giant pandas is a great model for that. They really open the door for people to see how their actions, whether you're a person coming to the zoo or a researcher or a conservationist, how we can work together and do something to help protect wildlife. So one of the things that's really special about the giant panda is that it is China's national treasure, and so to be given the great honor of having China's national treasure at your institution, I mean, that's an amazing, it's an amazing gift and an amazing honor to be trusted with them. To see from the time they came, maturing, having babies, raising their babies, having those babies go to China, just being able to fulfill those, not necessarily promises, but to fulfill those goals that we had, being able to be successful, that tells a great story. And it's one of the things that I'm the most proud of with our giant panda program. The giant panda program really continues to be one of our most significant programs here at Zoo Atlanta. It represents our most significant, really, contribution to conservation, but also our most significant contribution to research and animal care. We've really dedicated a lot of our resources to making sure we have a significant role in that program. We've donated over $16 million to giant panda conservation, and those funds have been used for a variety of things, from work and research that's happening in the natural reserves, to work with ranger stations, but we've been able to really provide a significant contribution and benefit to that wild population. And we know with conservation, what really makes a difference for species is when we can really commit to programs long term. And so we're so proud that giant pandas has been a program we've been able to consistently and year after year continue to support, and we want to continue to be part of that success story, to continue to see that population benefit. And I think we have a lot of work to do, but we're on the right track, and we want to be part of that success story. We were really fortunate to have just such an amazing partner in the research base from the beginning, an amazing staff of people who were so knowledgeable and so skillful and such just intelligent people doing such good work, such good research with giant pandas, and that they were willing to share with us and to have us come and learn from them and they learned from us. And I just felt like it was, you know, a really strong scientific partnership and a great friendship.