FOR THE LOVE OF PANDAS

A mother panda is generally unable to raise two babies at the same time. Whenever twin pandas are born, human caregivers have to take on the role of nanny to the newborns
By ERIN YE

Its nine oclock in the morning of July 22, 2009 in Yaan, Sichuan. An event that occurs only once every 500 years is taking place: a total eclipse of the sun. Standing under the eaves, Huang Zhi and Luo Bo watch the pens some 100 metres away sink into darkness at the Yaan Bifeng Gorge base of the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center. The storm on the previous night had damaged the power supply circuits. Within the entire 716,000-square-metre compound, the only light now emits from the maternity and nursery wards, powered by their own generators. The rain keeps pelting down, with heavy clouds blotting out the sky. Although they are unable to witness the eclipse, both Huang and Luo, the two directors of the Department of Animal Management at the Center, are in high spirits. After an entire nights waiting, together with panda breeder Feng Gao-zhi, they had just delivered a pair of twin sons with their own hands, the first delivery for Nana the panda. This first pair of panda twins born in 2009 is also a lucky pair: a month before they were born, the Center had signed an agreement for a three-year panda conservation plan with auto-mobile giant Mercedes-Benz China. The company pledged to help improve the living conditions of baby pandas through its Green Legacy Program, a specialised fund for nature conservation it had launched in 2007. Christening the twins Xing Hui and Xing Rui respectively, the company committed to funding the twins for the duration of their lives. Early Days The total solar eclipse over the Bifeng Gorge has shocked the 13 baby pandas born shortly after the Wenchuan Earthquake in May 2008. They stop playing and grab hold of the trees, looking up to the sky in confusion. Meanwhile, Li Guo, the chief of the nursery, has just checked on Xing Huis nursing crate. The little fella is lying on its front quietly, sound asleep under a piece of panda hide. The warmth of the box and the softness of the hide provide the baby panda with a strong sense of security. Owing to his relatively undeveloped senses of sight and hearing, his sweet dreams have been thankfully uninterrupted by the din and uproar ensuing from the eclipse. Xing Hui is the first baby panda resident of the nursery this year. Like all other newborn baby pandas, he doesnt look very attractive. His body, the size of a rat, is a flushed red and furless all over, with the characteristic black and white fur distinctly absent. Caregivers liken the appearance of these tiny baby mammals to skinned rats. The panda nursery is located next to the Panda Kindergarten, both of which belong to the Mercedes-Benz Giant Panda Theme Park. The panda twins will spend half of their

first six months in the nursery, after which they will begin schooling at the kindergarten with other baby pandas of the same age group. In addition to four pens, the kindergarten also boasts two open-air amusement parks. At the centre of each park stands a wooden platform over a metre high, with six small trees each about two metres high planted at small intervals around it. Two tyres playthings for the baby pandas hang from one of the trees. Good Parenting Human caregivers look after the baby pandas from the time they are born through adolescence. Interestingly, there are more male than female caregivers here, with four daddies and two mummies divvying up the responsibilities of taking care of the young. The main task of these nannies is to be there with the young pandas through their mealtimes, playtime even during their toilet breaks. At about 7 am, Xing Hui takes his first sip of milk, much to Li Guos relief. The first feeding is typically the toughest. While baby pandas are equipped with the natural ability to locate and feed from their mothers nipples, things are not as simple with foster breeding. First, the caregiver has to carefully wrap the baby pandas little body with a cotton gauze patch folded thrice over with one hand, so that only its tiny head is exposed. Using the other hand, the nanny has to hold a 50-millilitre cylindrical milk bottle and either gently touch the baby pandas mouth with the bottle teat, or squeeze the bottle to smear some milk on its lips. Hopefully, the milky flavour will arouse its sense of smell, enticing its tiny mouth to open. The baby panda has no idea what you are doing, nor does it know what a bottle teat is. It wont open its mouth instinctively. In this case, its important that the hand holding the baby panda simulates a mothers embrace, so that it feels comfortable and safe. If it gets too nervous or frightened, it wont feed. Li Guo is a senior daddy in the nursery. In 2006, there was an astonishing time when he had to take care of six baby pandas all by himself every night. Often, when one was feeding, another would become restless. Super-Daddy Li would then have to multi task, hugging one while patting the other. By the time he was done feeding all six babies, it would often already be dawn. Thankfully, Xing Hui is a good baby, saving his caregivers a lot of trouble. When it comes to the more fussy ones, however, feeding can be challenging enough to drive anyone mad. There have been times when Li Guo has had to try feeding a newborn baby panda over and over again. A single gram of milk would get cold and had to be warmed up repeatedly, and the babys tiny mouth moistened with a small cotton ball dipped in purified water every so often. It could be a whole night of pottering about before the baby panda would finally feed for the first time. The key to breeding pandas is to be careful, patient, and loving, says caregiver Zhang Ya-hui, a Shaanxi native who transferred here two years ago. Prior to coming to the conservation centre, he had done jobs such as field monitoring, habitat surveying, and wilderness training as part of the Scientific Research Department. From the rough-andtumble nature of fieldwork to the gentleness and meticulousness necessitated by nannying the pandas, Zhang recalls how drastic and difficult the transformation had

been: he was practically trembling the first time he held a tiny baby panda, which weighed only as much as two eggs, in his hands. The nursery shift operates on a 24-hour basis: a group made up of two caregivers do a 24-hour shift (starting at 8 am) at a time. When he first started out doing the 24-hour shifts, Zhang would be very restless. Time itself seemed to stand still, especially during the wee hours. Thankfully, he eventually got used to it. Pandering to Their Every Need For the first seven days of his life, Xing Hui feeds on colostrum (milk secreted during the first three days after parturition), consuming one to two grams, depending on his appetite, once every three hours. He then moves on to a mixture of colostrum and milk formula, and, subsequently, milk formula after ten days. Since the blend of ingredients and quantity varies with each meal, caregivers have to weigh each ingredient carefully to ensure that the right formula is fed to the growing baby pandas. Before feeding, the caregivers also have to help the babies regulate their bladder and bowel movements. A panda younger than three or four months old cannot defecate by itself, and requires the help of its mother or caregiver. Li Guo places a petri dish under Xing Huis tiny body, and gently taps at his behind with a cotton ball pre-moistened with purified water to induce defecation. The whole process, complete with feeding, takes about an hour. When Xing Hui is two months old, his new daddy Zheng Xin arrives at the nursery. With his now distinctly black and white fur, fully open eyes and developing hearing, Xing Hui is now recognisably a panda, although he is still unable to walk erectly, and also still spends most of his time in his crate sleeping. Its time for gymnastics, and Zheng Xin takes Xing Hui into his arms. Baby pandas feel uncomfortable if they sleep for too long without sufficient physical activity. Zheng pinches Xing Huis arms and legs and then pats his back, massaging his belly using a clockwise motion from time to time. If he feels satisfied, Xing Hui will huddle up, staying still in his daddys arms; if not, he will almost certainly make his protestations clear, wriggling incessantly. Xing Hui enjoys being held up the most. Although pandas seem to wear a poker face all the time due to their underdeveloped facial nerves, Zheng is nonetheless able to sense if Xing Hui is in a good mood. Life Besides Pandas Panda breeder Feng Gao-zhi has also missed the total eclipse of the sun, even though it is an extremely rare occurence. After Nanas delivery, Feng returns to his dorm. There is only one thing on his mind: sleep. After a 24-hour nursery shift, sleep is always the topmost priority for the caregivers. By the time he wakes up, the day would almost be over. Its the same for all his colleagues too. Last year, Zhang Ya-huis wife came to Yaan to reunite with her husband. But Zhang would fall into an exhausted sleep as soon as he got back from the nursery. His wife complained, At home, I am always alone. I didnt expect to be alone here too. Zhang felt very apologetic, but also helpless. I have no

other choice, and You just have to get used to it these are probably the most ready answers the caregivers give to others. Here, it is only too typical for married couples to live in separate provinces and for caregivers not to head home for Chinese New Year. Disconnected from the outside world, they are gradually divorced from their social circles. Most are paid a meagre salary less than the typical going wage; many would never be able to afford an apartment in their lives. It seems scarcely likely that these sacrifices would have been made for anything less than a genuinely deep love for wildlife. Its simple I adore the panda, Feng explains. A law graduate, he would never have become a panda breeder otherwise. Zheng Xin is the same. When one of his primary school teachers tasked the class to write about their ambition, Zheng wrote animal protection. When he chose wildlife conservation as his major when he was applying for an undergraduate programme, his mother thought he had gone mad. These young caregivers are not only protecting the baby pandas. They are protecting their own dreams. Despite the tribulations that are part and parcel of their work at the Center, they continue to stand proudly by what they do: playing their part in ensuring the continued survival of the giant panda.

Source Readers Digest April 2010