Panda Night Watch 2003
Volunteers spend one week, twice a year, monitoring
Mei Xiang and Tian Tian's behavior overnight. Scientists have
discovered some surprising trends offering some interesting
clues into the mysterious world of the zoo's giant pandas.
The study is an important component in the zoo's Giant Panda
program.
This will be the third year that Mei and Tian's behaviors will be recorded overnight. This study is a replication of the one conducted thirty years ago with the zoo's first pair of giant pandas, Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing.
The objectives are to characterize 24-hour activity patterns, compare their patterns and activities with those of the previous pair of pandas at the Zoo, Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing, and identify seasonal changes in activity.
To accomplish this, start and stop times are written down for rest/sleep, eating/drinking, grooming, bathing, scent marking, urination/defecation, or a catch-all of "other" in which volunteers record rolling or anything else that doesn't fit into the other categories.
Check
out details of the research published in 2002 based on previous
night watches.
Read about the first time the night watch took place with Mei Xiang and Tian Tian.
