The PDXWildlife panda team, which consists of the lovely Meghan Martin-Wintle and the complimentary Nathan Wintle, had to pull double travel duty this week. I’m currently in China preparing for the arrival of the new interns, with Meghan attending the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) Species Survival Plan (SSP) meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. We normally try to keep at least one of the adults at home, but sometimes the travel schedule decides to throw a curve ball.
The initial word from Meghan is that the meeting is going very well and that it has been very productive. She will have to give us an update when she plants her feet back down in Portland later this week.
With a side trip to Beijing planned for me tomorrow, we get one step closer to completing the sample collection for our mercury project. After returning from Beijing, I immediately pickup the summer interns and return to Ya’an for their crash course in panda bear research. These are definitely busy times for both of us, but we sincerely love what we do. And, this makes every bit of it exciting. Off to the races-
