Spring Intern Arrives Just in Time

How Could You Pass Up a Chance to Work With These Guys?

How Could You Pass Up a Chance to Work With These Guys?

Just as our Spring intern, Stephanie McMahon arrived, the majority of the Bifeng Xia pandas have decided that they would begin breeding. The much needed assistance that Stephanie is providing will help to collect important behavioral data. It’s a job that requires you to wake early and stay late. So we sincerely appreciate all her hard work.

We still have positions available for the Summer and Fall, so check out our intern application by clicking on the below link and we hope to hear from you soon.

Panda Intern Info & Application-

The Year of the Arboreal Panda

Wang Jia in the early dawn as the sun rose.

Wang Jia in the early dawn as the sun rose.

I’ve decided that “The Year of the Snake” just doesn’t cut it for a description of this years pandas so I’ve decided to rename the year to “The Year of the Arboreal Panda”.  It seems like tree climbing is in the air (literally and figuratively) around the base this year for all the females.  Continue reading

Xinbin Lab to Analyze Panda Hair

courtesy of google images

courtesy of google images

The extreme difficulty in obtaining permits to transfer biological samples back to the United States from China has caused our mercury project to use a lab here in China. We are very pleased to have made contact with one of China’s foremost Methylmercury experts, Prof. Feng Xinbin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Guiyang, China, who is currently analyzing all of our samples. We expect to have results within a few months.

Panda Love

Zhen Zhen climbing the trees in her enclosure to get a better look at her potential mate, Lu Lu.

Zhen Zhen climbing the trees in her enclosure to get a better look at her potential mate, Lu Lu.

We had the first mating at the panda base this weekend (2/11-2/12).  I figure that’s close enough to Valentines Day that I could write “Valentine’s Day” post about it!

This particular mating was a special one for me as the female, Zhen Zhen, was born at the San Diego Zoo and had her first estrus this year at 6 years old.  Her behaviors leading up to the mating were, in a word, AWESOME.  Continue reading