Comparisons Between Wolong and Chengdu

Climate: The base differs from Wolong in many ways. First, its much warmer here and very humid--not exactly what pandas are used to. The staff is very careful with the heat. If the temperature is less than 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 F), the pandas are allowed to go outside. Between 26 and 30 Celsius (78.8 - 86 F), the pandas are given access to indoor enclosures and keepers try to keep them cool with them fans, air conditioning, or large blocks of ice. When it's above 30 Celsius (86 F), the pandas are kept inside with keepers trying to keep them cool.

Enclosures: A second difference is that most of the enclosures here are all very large and very naturalistic. One enclosure covers nearly 4,000 square meters (about one acre) and has about 80 trees in it! A new breeding facility, completed in February 2001, has smaller but still spacious outdoor habitats, with climbing trees, water pools, and outdoor dens.

Hong videotaped the behavior of
many pandas in their enclosures.

Female Pandas Live Together
A third difference is that most of the females here are housed together for some of the year. After breeding they are kept together in pairs until one shows signs of getting ready to give birth. I hadn't expected to see this as pandas are generally solitary in the wild. Adult females meet one another mostly through scent or sound, and rarely spend time together. It's good that we saw pandas cared for and exhibited in a variety of ways. This will help us to nail down the factors that are likely to promote normal sexual behavior. Here too, we saw a variety of responses to the novel object and scent, ranging from lack of interest to intense curiosity.

Twins Born to Li Li!
At Chengdu we were treated to a rare delight: One of our study females, Li Li, gave birth to twins! We knew the birth had occurred when a loud, screechy, squawky call pierced the air. The calls of newborn pandas are like those of a strange sounding duck! Panda infants are tiny, blind, helpless, and are unable to thermoregulate. So mom has to provide a lot of support, and those loud vocalizations ensure that the infant gets her attention. We didn't get to see the birth, but we watched Li Li later with one of the infants (all I could see was a leg and a tail) and saw the other infant in an incubator. This was the first panda infant I had ever seen so I was very excited. This birth was special because it is the first for Li Li. Hopefully she'll be a good mother.

Next site: Ocean Park in Hong Kong (at right)
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