Weather in San Diego - Sunny & 70 WOOHOO!

Happy Gradumucation, Hulia & Friends, class of '06! Congrats!

In honor of Monday's historical Pandodyssey (TM) to the world renown San Diego Zoo (baby panda mecca), I figured I should check in and see how they were doing today. I am happy to report they are, as always, TOO CUTE! (I say thay WAAY too often, but it's better than line after line of "eeeeeeee"! isn't it? )

Bathing Beauties

In the last few days the pool in Bai Yun and Su Lin’s exhibit at the San Diego Zoo has returned to its proper function as a pool. Keepers had been placing bamboo for the giant pandas in the drained pond after early concerns that using it for water while Su Lin was a small, unsteady cub could pose a potential hazard for her. It was a common place for Bai Yun to recline and eat. Bamboo is now placed to the side, and the pool contains water once again.

In her best motherly manner, Bai Yun has been insuring that Su Lin experiences the water first-hand. Su Lin, however, does not appear to be at all pleased with this: Mom pushes her in and she races out as quickly as possible, climbing up above her mother and shaking off this “alien substance.” Bai Yun continued, yesterday morning, to pull, push, and drag Su Lin into the pool several times; Su Lin clambered out as quickly as she could each time. Bai Yun even stood splashing in the pool while watching her cub, perhaps an attempt to entice Su Lin in. As it was in the early days of “water lessons” for her brother, Mei Sheng, this does not appear to be a favorite game, although colleagues report that she has been exploring the pool alone, and more comfortably, while Bai Yun sleeps.

Pandas will enter the water to cool off and even Shi Shi, our former male-in-residence, had been observed sitting in the pool, splashing with his forepaws and wiggling his feet. Water interaction increases among mature females as they approach their brief mating season. This may be a way for them to spread their scent farther on the ground to notify any males in the area of their seasonal changes, so this is an important new medium for Su Lin to learn about.

Whatever the purpose - and researchers are studying these behaviors at many facilities around the world to answer questions such as these - Su Lin and Bai Yun are in the next phase of the cub-rearing process. It’s going to be an exciting few months as this little girl is prepared by her mother in so many ways for life on her own.

I wonder if panda boys are raised differently from panda girls? (Hey Su, guess what? You know tai shan gets to stay outside till midnight whenever he wants...) HA-HA! (ala Nelson).

You can watch the left coast pandas here. Or go see them IN PERSON ON MONDAY LIKE ME. Oh? You're not going? Hmmm, too bad for you.

(HA-HA!)