This story has been floating around the interwebs for the past week or two and I understand why it keeps being re-posted on social media.... its seemingly hilarious!

Ai Hin, a 6 year old panda at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Center, the same place some of our San Diego pandas now call home, is said to have faked a pregnancy to get special treatment, including more food, air conditioning and increased attention.  Chengdu reported Ai Hin was showing signs of pregnancy in the form of reduced appetite, less mobility and a surge of progestational hormone. But, it could be possible she was pregnant but reabsorbed the fetus. Surges in hormones are hard to fake and it is fairly common for pandas to lose a pregnancy, reabsorbing the fetus so it appears as if there was no pregnancy at all.  Reabsorption could happen because there is a fetal defect or death, the mother has a disease which affects her ability to properly care of the fetus, there is a hormonal disruption, or environmental conditions are not conducive to caring for the baby. At the San Diego Zoo, they have seen this phenomenon with the use of thermal imaging and ultra sound.  Bai Yun was suspected to be carrying twins on more than one occasion but has only ever given birth to one cub.  This kind of fetal reabsorption is called "prenatal litter pruning".  The mechanism isn't exactly known but could be an adaptive result of pandas not being able to care for more than one cub in natural, wild conditions.   

Who knows.  Maybe Panda McLiar Pants wasn't lying after all but her body decided this just wasn't the time.  She's only 6 and has never been a mother.  Maybe she just wasn't ready yet!!

Su Lin, third cub to Bai Yun and second of the Bai & Gao Gao super team, has given birth to twins!  This boy and girl pair are her second and third contributions to the panda gene pool.  

Su Lin was one of the pandas I was trained on.  From 2007 to 2010 I watched her grow from a newly weaned cub to a full grown, independent panda before being sent to China.  All captive pandas are owned by China, on loan as part of a research agreement.  Part of the agreement requires all pandas born to loaned research pandas to be returned to China when they turn 3.  Su Lin's 3rd birthday, however, was only a matter of months after the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 which leveled much of the Wolong National Nature Reserve and the Panda Research Center where she was supposed to be sent.  So, Su Lin stayed with us at the San Diego Zoo until she was 5 and traveled to China along side her sister Zhen Zhen shortly after her 3rd birthday. 

Turns out twins might run in the family.  This was actually Su Lin's second set of twins.  Her first had one healthy cub and a still born.  Her older half-sister, Hua Mei, has given birth to three sets of twins and Bai Yun, although none came to term, has been suspected to have been developing twins when vets did ultrasounds during pregnancy.  In the wild, having twins isn't advantageous.  The amount of energy it takes to raise two cubs far exceeds what mom is capable of providing so the panda mother is forced to pick the stronger cub to raise.  Lucky for these ladies, they are part of breeding facilities equipped with all the "energy" needed to provide for both cubs.

It is so wonderful to see all the success of the San Diego Zoo's Panda Research Facility's breeding program.  Not only have six cubs been born in the program but they have given birth to 14 cubs of their own!  So many sets of twins really help them up their numbers.

My mission statement, of sorts, is I am a professional student saving the planet one carnivore at a time and a scientific review published today in Science (Volume 343) does a pretty good job of explaining why.  Carnivores are really cool but the importance of keeping these species’ populations healthy is more important than because they’re badass. 

Most of the members of the order Carnivora are at the top of the food chain in their ecosystem making them an integral part of the health and well-being of that ecosystem.  And, since carnivores exist in almost every habitat on Earth, declines in these species can be seriously detrimental to the condition of our plant.  Carnivores play an important role in regulating ecosystem function.  Other species, both flora and fauna, rely on carnivores hunting, scavenging, leaving prey remains, etc. whether directly or indirectly.  A decline in carnivores has some fairly unexpected effects including changes in biodiversity, disease, and even stream morphology.   

Natural ecosystem balance has ebb and flow, but in recent ecological history the ebb is beating out the flow in regards to many carnivore populations.  Factors such as human-animal conflict, habitat loss and depletion of prey due to over hunting are changing our planet’s carnivore populations and declines are causing declines in other essential species and increases in destructive ones.   This review focused on seven of the 31 large mammalian species of Carnivora (above) which have documented trophic cascades (meaning the predator is responsible for the alteration traits of their prey within a food web – ie the Circle of Life) reporting on the effects each carnivore has on its individual ecosystem.  Their conclusions, humans cannot replace carnivores in their role of preserving ecosystem balance and conservation efforts need to be made to prevent further loss or even extinction of such important biodiversity and ecosystem function maintenance species.

Big News from the San Diego Zoo!  Yun Zi, the fifth cub mothered by Bai Yun and fourth to Gao Gao, will be following in the footsteps of his four siblings before him and making the journey back to his homeland next week.   His arrival in China marks the beginning of his genetic contribution to the Panda species as a member of the breeding program.  His siblings have had great success in the breeding program bringing more than 10 cubs into the world.

I am so proud of that little guy (well, not so little anymore).  I was there when he was born and saw him almost every week until I moved to Texas.  He is a gorgeous bear with a lot of personality and will be a great addition to the breeding program.  I will miss him as I miss Mei Sheng, Su Lin and Zhen Zhen and hope that some day I might be able to make my own journey to China to visit.