by Meg | Aug 15, 2012 | Internship, Panda, Travel
We are so happy to welcome Kim Render as our Panda Fall intern! Kim will be continuing the personality and stereotypical studies that Arina was performing and will also develop a maternal behavior study to track maternal investment in female giant pandas. Kim...
by Meg | Aug 2, 2012 | Internship, Panda, Travel
Things have been getting interesting here at Bi Feng Xia. So far, four females have given birth and the cub count is up to seven (three sets of twins)! I have been trying to collect as much personality data on the females before they get close to giving birth, so I...
by Meg | Jul 24, 2012 | Around PDX, Current Endangered Species News
I’m super excited! I just published my second paper for the year – “Investigation of individual and group variability in estrous cycle characteristics in female Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) at the Oregon Zoo” in Theriogenology. If...
by Meg | Jul 21, 2012 | Current Endangered Species News, Environmental Impact, Marine Mammal
I subscribe to Polar Bears International e-newsletter and I loved the latest letter for June that explained why losing polar ice mattered so much for the polar bears. In short: “Polar bears began swimming back to shore last week nearly four weeks ahead of their...
by Meg | Jul 20, 2012 | Current Endangered Species News, Internship, Panda, Travel
Everyone at the base has been busy the last couple of weeks preparing for the arrival of the first panda cubs: All the male pandas have been moved out of the breeding center to make room for the females that the staff believes are close to giving birth, the breeding...
by Meg | Jul 17, 2012 | Internship, Panda, Travel |
I started the panda “personality” study last week and I have been introducing a basketball into the pandas’ enclosures and recording their reactions. So far most of the subjects have been females (the birthing season is fast approaching and I wanted to get as many...
by Meg | Jun 28, 2012 | Around PDX, Current Endangered Species News, Environmental Impact
One of the wonderful scientists on our advisory board, Anne Warner, just sent this around to me and so I thought I’d share. From Anne: “There are so few ways to fund conservation work in this state I want to support this novel approach and help get the...
by Meg | Jun 26, 2012 | Current Endangered Species News
I’m sure you’ve all heard that Lonesome George, the Pinta Island giant tortoise thought to be the last of his subspecies, died Sunday in his Galápagos Island home. He was over 100 years old, scientists estimate, which is middle-aged for a tortoise whose...
by Meg | Jun 22, 2012 | Internship, Panda
I have been studying the stereotypic activities of the pandas here at Bi Feng Xia for the past several weeks, keeping track of what kinds of stereotypies each panda exhibits and the amount of time they spend on these behaviors. So far, Yao Yuan is the only panda that...
by Meg | Jun 7, 2012 | Internship, Panda, Travel
I just finished up China and am now safely home and a little jet-lagged from the trip. We were really busy the last two weeks with Arina’s arrival, planning out her work, introducing her, and saying goodbye to some wonderful friends we’ve made! I always...
