Summary of Talks, January 15-16, 2002
GIANT PANDAS AND THE NATIONAL
ZOO:
From The First Year Into The Future
Since their arrival at the National Zoo one year ago, giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian have received 2.6 million visitors—more than 7,000 per day. While visitors have been delighted by the playful duo's frisky antics, many are unaware of the bustle of panda-related activities going on behind the scenes. Interested members of the public were given a tantalizing glimpse into this more hidden aspect of the Zoo at a symposium about giant pandas the evenings of January 15 and 16, 2002.
"Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are just the tip of the iceberg," Zoo Director Lucy Spelman explained. Their presence in the U.S. marks a new era of scientific research and collaborative effort, all focused on the conservation of giant pandas in the wild. Spelman attributes this renewal of conservation efforts to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's policy regarding panda loans to the U.S.
"The fundamental purpose of the policy is to prevent us from loving the pandas to death," said Peter Thomas, Chief of the CITES Management Authority for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Because they are highly endangered, giant pandas are protected both by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The USFWS policy requires that panda loans are accompanied by scientific research and breeding programs aimed at enhancing survival of giant pandas in the wild.
During the ten-year period that Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are on loan, the National Zoo will contribute $1 million per year towards improvement of remote panda reserves in China. In the next three years, the Zoo plans to focus on three reserves that are woefully underdeveloped and require attention at the ground level. For example, when visiting the Qian Fo Shan reserve this past year, Spelman discovered that the protection station used as a home base by reserve guards had been washed away in a rain storm. See Panda Conservation Brings Lucy Spelman Back to China
The Zoo has raised additional funds for an ambitious and comprehensive program of training and research, and for the construction of a new giant panda enclosure at the National Zoo. As the symposium speakers described the various research activities and training programs that have been conducted in the past year and are planned for the future, they all emphasized the importance of relationship-building and collaboration with the Chinese. "People are the solution here," Spelman said.
Conservationists consider giant pandas an umbrella species: "Protecting the panda is like holding an umbrella over an entire range of other species" that share the panda's threatened habitat, explained Karen Baragona from the World Wildlife Fund, US. Giant panda protection begins with an understanding of their status in the wild. WWF helped coordinate the first survey in ten years to assess the number of wild giant pandas, the quality and amount of panda habitat, and current level of threats to survival.
"This work is not for the faint of heart," Baragona said. Giant pandas make their home in the cold, rugged mountains on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Surveying the area requires climbing steep slopes and crossing icy streams. Giant panda droppings are used as a clue to infer the number of individual pandas inhabiting a given area. "It's often as close as you get to a wild animal, especially one as elusive as the giant panda."
National Zoo wildlife biologist William McShea contributes to field studies of wild giant pandas by sharing his expertise in high-tech mapping. "It's no good to see a panda out in the wild if you don't know where you are when you see it," McShea pointed out. He trained Chinese reserve staff in the use of GPS technologies and GIS mapping software to develop detailed maps depicting all kinds of useful information, such as distribution of habitat, wildlife population densities, and patterns of human land use.
Preliminary results from the WWF survey indicate that current reserves aren't big enough to support giant panda populations over the long term. Prime panda habitat once covered much of southern China, but encroaching development has drastically shrunk the amount of space available for pandas. "They really don't have any place to go. They're already pushed to the edge," said World Wildlife Fund senior conservation specialist Colby Louks.
WWF is working to help identify, restore, and protect giant panda habitat between existing reserves. Part of this process is helping local people find a way to make a living without destroying the forests that pandas depend on for survival. With the assistance of WWF, some Chinese villages have begun the transition from farming and logging to ecotourism and sustainable harvest of forest products such as mushrooms and honey.
To help support giant panda conservation in the wild, zoos in China and the Western world hope to establish a self-sustaining zoo population. Unfortunately, past attempts at breeding giant pandas in zoos have had limited success. Recently, National Zoo chief reproductive physiologist David Wildt worked with Western and Chinese colleagues to assess the health status of all zoo pandas and identify factors that have limited breeding success. "We do have a good [zoo] population to work from," Wildt said. "But if it's not managed properly, [zoo] pandas will become inbred and go extinct."
Breeding techniques used by the Chinese often made it difficult to determine the paternity of zoo pandas, information necessary to avoid inbreeding. National Zoo population manager John Ballou and collaborators at the National Cancer Institute used genetic analyses to deduce the paternity of pandas at Chinese breeding centers and make recommendations regarding which animals should be paired for breeding. The ultimate goal is the development of a Cooperative Breeding Program, whereby male pandas or their sperm are shared between different breeding centers and even wild populations. "If all the zoos band together, we can reduce these factors" jeopardizing the genetic health of zoo populations, Ballou said.
Through training and technology transfer, National Zoo reproductive physiologist JoGayle Howard has helped provide the Chinese with the tools to comprehensively monitor and promote giant panda reproductive health. Cutting-edge technologies range from hormone monitoring to cold storage of sperm for artificial insemination. With Howard's assistance, three female pandas labeled "non-breeders" by their Chinese keepers each gave birth to healthy cubs last year.
Behavioral problems are another big obstacle to breeding success. Because wild pandas tend to be solitary by nature, zoos had traditionally raised pandas in isolation. When adult pandas were then brought together for the purpose of mating, males typically treated the females aggressively-or ignored them altogether. Female pandas often show no behavioral signs of estrus, the period of time immediately before ovulation when females are most receptive to mating.
Changes in the giant panda's social and physical environment can help overcome these behavioral problems. National Zoo biologist David Powell is carefully studying the behavior of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian to determine their preferences for various features of their enclosure, such as air-conditioned caves, sand pits, and climbing trees. He is also paying close attention to social interactions between the two pandas. "We're asking the pandas, 'What do you want?'" Powell explained.
Powell is also working with Chinese giant panda keepers, training them how to study panda behavior and provide pandas with a more enriched environment. He is studying the environments and "personalities" of over 40 giant pandas in China to tease out factors that correlate with reproductive success. Not only will behavioral research help improve breeding success, but it will also help lay the groundwork for reintroduction of zoo pandas to the wild. For example, Powell is studying the best way to bait pandas, so that reintroduced animals can be periodically recaptured and examined.
Even when zoo giant pandas do breed successfully, newborn cubs are often lost to disease. Through careful detective work in both North America and China, National Zoo pathologist Richard Montali has determined one source of the problem to be a depressed immune system in infants, and so he has developed techniques for boosting immunity. "We feel a lot more secure now," Montali said. "We can now ensure that cubs we have in the future will hopefully have higher survival rates."
Survival of adult giant pandas depends on proper nutrition. "As a nutritionist, I think [the giant panda] is a very enigmatic animal," said National Zoo Nutritionist Mary Allen. Although pandas have the head, mouth, teeth, and digestive system of a meat-eater, they survive almost entirely on bamboo, a grass. Because giant pandas do not have the multi-chambered stomachs of a typical herbivore, bamboo passes through their system relatively unprocessed. As a consequence, wild pandas must spend up to 16 hours a day eating in order to get enough nutrients.
Past research at the National Zoo led to the development of a special high-fiber biscuit for feeding zoo pandas. Currently, Allen is studying the distribution of selenium, an important mineral nutrient, in wild panda habitats. Allen is concerned that as wild pandas are pushed into smaller areas of habitat with less diverse bamboo, they may suffer from nutritional imbalances.
Ultimately, the future success of giant panda conservation depends on the people who work with and live among giant pandas, and those who live nearby. In their upcoming book, Smithsonian Book of Giant Pandas, National Zoo senior curator John Seidensticker and Friends of the National Zoo communications director Susan Lumpkin describe the difficult working and living conditions endured by giant panda reserve guards. For example, the Yele Nature Reserve guard station is located thirty minutes from the nearest town and lacks phones or running water. The office and sleeping quarters are Spartan-modestly furnished and poorly lit. See Around the Rim in Fourteen Days.
Seidensticker and Lumpkin use this example to highlight the importance of the National Zoo's efforts to work in concert with Chinese reserves as well as the Chinese people on panda conservation issues. "The people that are part of the problem must also be part of the solution," they note. "At the end of the day it's the people and their values who will make a difference."
- Jill Locantore
