Baby panda born at National Zoo

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Baby panda born yesterday (Aug. 21) at National Zoo in DC.

Will this panda be a birthright citizen of the United States? What is the citizenship of Ma and Pa Panda? Aren’t all pandas in the US owned by and on loan from China? What is the ownership rule for American-born pandas of Chinese-national parents? Is the baby a citizen of China on the grounds that the parents are diplomats?

(No, discobot, this topic is not similar to “Baby born in flight. Citizenship?” nor “Cigars when a new baby is born-origins?” nor “Baby born with blood alcohol content of .21” It may be similar to “Live PandaCam at National Zoo” although that was 15 years ago. It may be similar to “Cute baby animals at zoos” from about 10 years ago.)

2

I saw that on the news this morning. The baby was described as being “the size of a stick of butter”.
:grin:

3

Serious answer, the cub will stay at the zoo until it is four years old, then it will be returned to China under an agreement with the Chinese government. China owns all pandas in U.S. zoos.

4

So, like, none of them can vote in American elections? Can they get absentee ballots to vote in Chinese elections?

5

Of course not, they’re not old enough.

6

I always knew that Panda’s could figure out the sex stuff, if only there weren’t millions of people looking at them all the time.

I certainly would always have a headache with that sort of constant observation.

7

However, this birth was the result of artificial insemination.

8

Good news. Here’s hoping the cub survives.

When I worked for the Smithsonian in Washington in the late 1980s-early 1990s, I knew the then Director of the National Zoo pretty well. I recall him once going off on a rant about how much he hated the pandas. Every breeding season there would be intense media scrutiny. Half the time the pandas wouldn’t mate, or the female wouldn’t get pregnant, or she would miscarry. If a cub would be born, it sometimes died after a few days. He just felt with thousands of other animals in the Zoo, many of them endangered, focusing on this one animal took money and attention away from them.

9

How reproductively competent are pandas win the wild? Are they any better than pandas in captivity? I always read about their wild populations being endangered. They seem to be not really too good at making new pandas.

10

They have a naturally low birth rate, so if the population is reduced they have a hard time replacing it. The reason they are endangered in the wild is primarily habitat loss.

In the wild, female pandas produce an offspring about once every two years. The young stays with the female for about 18 months, and during that time she won’t be fertile. In captivity, a cub is removed after 6 months in order to encourage a pregnancy the next year, but the female’s reproductive cycle may still be disrupted.

One of the problems in captivity is that the usual features of courtship are absent. In captivity, the female only has a single male to choose from. The pair may not be compatible, and they may not be experienced. In the wild, a female in estrus will attract the attention of several males, which compete among themselves for access to her. Large dominant males may mate with several females. Perhaps the female is stimulated by having males fight over her. And the male that mates will be probably already be experienced. (Younger males may learn how to mate by observing older ones.) It’s possible that going through normal courtship and mating may affect the female’s hormonal state and thus the course of pregnancy.