With an easily identifiable foaming mouth and stereotypic pacing, Lu Lu (#503), was moved from Bifengxia to Gengda. A wild caught panda, Lu Lu is thought to have been born in 1999, making him 17 years old. I’ve gotten to know him over the previous five years, and he was a highly successful breeder who the keepers could always count on to “get the job done”. However, the 2016 breeding season saw a dramatic change in his abilility to keep his prolific pace.
Enter Jin Ke… The new king of Bifengxia. If the breeding plan was to include Jin Ke (#743) anywhere on the list, he was certainly able to fill the shoes of his slobbery predecessor. Jin Ke was born here at Bifengxia, bounced between a few other bases, but ended up back at his birthplace. Born in 2009, he is of the ripe breeding age and looks like he will continue his reign for the next few years. I’m certain that we will be seeing some of his offspring in the next few months.
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- Lu Lu
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- Jin Ke
I hope Lu Lu is not ill–maybe he burned himself out last year with all of his recordbreaking sessions?
He seemed very healthy. I would put the reason of his “dethroning” on his busy past and the continuous presence of other high status males. It will be interesting to pair his fecal hormone levels after we analyze them in the near future. Might give us some more insight.
Hope all is well-
Would be interesting to see if he were more interested in Zhen Zhen or one of the other ladies he cavorted with at such length last year–
All’s well here–hope you all are well too.
Looking forward to more reports on the bears!
Take care–