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Giant pandas typically survive longer in captivity because they are protected from the various environmental threats they would face in their natural habitat. Although the work of conservationists is vital to maintain and replenish the giant panda population, the eventual aim is to return as many giant pandas to the wild as possible. Except for a marsupial, such as a kangaroo or opossum, a giant panda baby is the smallest mammal newborn relative to its mother's size.
Cubs do not open their eyes until they are weeks old and are not mobile until they are 3 months old. A cub may nurse for eight to nine months and is nutritionally weaned at 1 year old, but not socially weaned for up to two years.
In the wild, giant pandas typically nap between feedings for two to four hours at a time, snoozing on their side, back, or belly, either sprawled or curled up. While a giant panda is resting, it continues to defecate. The number of droppings at a rest site can be used to gauge the relative amount of time a giant panda spent at that site. During a short rest of less than two hours, there are five to ten droppings.
Eleven to 25 droppings often accompany rests lasting longer than two hours. Most rest periods are two to four hours in duration but may increase to six or more hours during the summer months. Scientists are not sure how long giant pandas live in the wild, but they are sure it is shorter than lifespans in zoos.
They estimate that lifespan is about years for wild pandas and about 30 years for those in human care. Chinese scientists have reported zoo pandas as old as The largest threat to giant panda survival is habitat destruction.
People in need of food and income have cleared forests for agriculture and timber. This logging has fragmented a once continuous habitat, leaving small groups of pandas isolated from each other.
When populations become small, they are extremely susceptible to extinction due to environmental or genetic influences, such as drought or inbreeding. Small populations cannot rebound the same way large populations do; as groups of pandas become more isolated, it is more likely that reproduction, disease resistance and population stability will be threatened. For more than 40 years, the Zoo has celebrated these charismatic bears by creating and maintaining one of the world's foremost panda conservation programs.
In that time, the Zoo's team — consisting of dozens of animal care staff, scientists, researchers, international collaborators and conservationists — has made great strides in saving this species from extinction by studying giant panda behavior, health, habitat and reproduction.
Specifically, it has allowed scientists at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute to learn about panda estrus, breeding, pregnancy, pseudopregnancy and cub development — work that is shared around the world with other institutions that also care for and breed this vulnerable species.
See a history and timeline of giant pandas at the Zoo here. Much has been learned since that time, but there still remains much more to learn. With the arrival of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, the Zoo has developed a ten-year research plan that will hopefully culminate in a growing, thriving population of giant pandas.
Some research areas will repeat behavioral observation studies on Tian Tian and Mei Xiang in order to increase sample size and determine whether a behavior pattern is common to giant pandas or particular to an individual. In other areas, such as reproductive biology, the advanced techniques scientists use today largely did not exist when Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were alive.
Also, opportunities for research and conservation initiatives in the wild, including the potential for increasing the wild giant panda population in China through reintroduction, are greater today than at any time in the past. However, these plans and initiatives will be costly to carry out, as will China's official National Plan for the Conservation of Giant Pandas and their Habitats.
Scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation and Biology Institute's Center for Conservation Genomics, have become adept at studying the genetic relatedness of pandas in human care. Chinese colleagues maintain an up-to-date studbook of these vulnerable animals.
Zoo scientists developed the formula used to make breeding recommendations for the entire giant panda population in human care, ensuring that it is genetically healthy.
Scientists are working to preserve 90 percent of the genetic diversity of the giant panda population in human care. Panda breeding season is a race against the biological clock. It only comes once a year, and the giant panda team, including scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Center for Species Survival, and vets, keepers and biologists from the Zoo's animal care teams, must be ready.
Giant panda females, like Mei Xiang, ovulate for just 24 to 72 hours. To identify the opening of that tiny window, animal keepers carefully watch Mei Xiang for any behavioral sign of estrus. At the same time, scientists monitor hormones in her urine to pinpoint the window when she is ready to breed. If attempts at natural breeding are not successful, scientists can step in, collect fresh or frozen-thawed semen from a male and use the genetic material collected to artificially inseminate a female.
Under the terms of the Zoo's agreement with China, scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's Conservation Ecology Center have studied these bears both in the wild and in human care.
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute ecologists spend months in China every year studying wild pandas and their neighbors, such as Asiatic black bears and takin. They teach colleagues in China how to conduct censuses and surveys of large mammals, including giant pandas that live in the wild, using geographic information systems GIS and other high-tech tools for tracking wildlife. They are also working to identify new landscapes for giant panda reintroduction. Field research has revealed that wild pandas' habitat is highly fragmented, which means pandas have a difficult time finding a mate.
To address that problem, Zoo scientists and colleagues have been exploring the possibility of creating "corridors" of forests that link isolated habitats. Such corridors would give giant pandas more options for movement and mate selection. They might also assist with the reintroduction of captive-born pandas into the wild. The Zoo's pandas are part of Panda Watch behavior study. Over the years, they've amassed mountains of data on the species, which is notoriously difficult to study in the wild.
In December , David M. In appreciation, the giant panda complex was named the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat. In addition, young conservation biologists in the U. Rubenstein Fellows. The gift allowed the Zoo's animal care and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's scientific team to proceed with the five-year science plan established with their Chinese colleagues from the China Wildlife Conservation Association.
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