I spent all day in Innsbruck when I was there, so in the late afternoon, I saw both marmots, beavers and Lizzie, the white squirrel . It really is a fantastic park.
I've seen Lizzie, she's a bit mad isn't she. The bison and Wild boar were having a big argument while I was there!! Both had young though......
@kiang: about Fu Long-http://www.zoovienna.at/e/index.html He just went outdoors for the first time last Sunday.
Has the zoo got the same $1m/year deal with China as the US zoos? Does that mean that it pays "rent" on the new baby of $500,000? At €12 per adult admission that would be an extra 42000 visitors/year. I suppose a big city zoo like Vienna can manage that so it is likely to be a good investment.
@Pygathrix: As far as I know, every zoo keeping Giant pandas outside of China has to pay the "leasing fees" (for I think they might be slightly variable from zoo to zoo). The only exceptions are PPPs ("political present pandas") like Bao-bao in Berlin Zoo.
Yes but do you have to pay extra for any babies? What if you had a pair which produced two sets of twins in two years? (highly unlikely I know) - it could bankrupt the zoo!
Giant Panda cubs born abroad become automatically the property of China; so once they're old enough to be seperated from their mothers, China decides what to do with them; usually, they're brought back to China. As far as I know, the zoo pays leasing costs for the rented Pandas, not for their offspring.
Sun or anyone, do you know what the exact arrangement with the panda's is for Vienna Zoo? As far as i know the panda's where "gifted" because the zoo celebrated it's 150th birthday. Some people actually reckon they are now the property of Vienna Zoo, but i'm pretty sure that's not the case. I do think they got their loan gifted though, so is it? And if so, how long do they not have to pay untill that gift runs out?
Vienna, or rather Austria, made the more or less typical "Panda" arrangement, joined by the WWF, with China: the Pandas are going to stay in Vienna till 2013 (ten years period). During this time span, Chinese biologists study in Austria and some of their Austrian colleagues will work in China. Additionally, China might receive money (exact amount?) from the zoo for conservation purposes.
Sorry to quote myself...I just read that Hua Mei who was born in San Diego in 1999 had her third set of twins in under 3 years at Wolong...this probably wouldn't have happened if she'd stayed at SD though because the babies are not taken away from their mothers at such a young age
What do you think about the Chinese Panda 'factories'(Wolong, Chengdu) where they take the babies away while still very young, presumably in order to get the mothers to breed again sooner? I've seen photos where the whole years 'crop' of babies- up to 16 young pandas- are shown with their keepers in a panda 'nursery'. These include many mother-reared babies which presumably won't see their mothers again... Surely it can't be good for their social development to be removed from the parent so early, and stressful for the mother pandas who have been rearing their babies. In the wild the cub stays with mother a lot longer, and they've followed this pattern too at San Diego- much more beneficial for both mother and cub.
Hi Grant, yes this has been touched on before http://www.zoobeat.com/19/panda-news-2636/ There was that amazing photo of a keeper in a room with 16 cubs of various ages, but all looked under a year old. I don't know anything about this but would assume that the young are removed to encourage earlier oestrus in the mothers. It would be interesting to see how this translates into second generation breeding from animals which have been reared in this way, how they socialise, and what the success rate is with attempted reintroductions.
I have been to both Chengdu & Wolong. What can I say? You can sure have second thoughts about it-but the reversion of the infant mortality numbers is impressive.
Surely once the mother-reared cubs are furred and their eyes open etc there's no danger of infant mortality anymore. Don't they worry the cubs removed at an early age(I'm talking about those where the mother is rearing her cub properly) will not be properly socialised when they grow up, or do they think the company of all the other young Pandas is sufficient?
My understanding is that all the cubs born in the chinese breeding facilities are mainly raised by their mothers for 6 months and removed then to be raised with other cubs so that the mothers gets pregnant the next breeding season and has cubs each year, while in the wild (and in San Diego) the females have cubs only every 2 years. "Mainly" raised by their mothers means that the keepers check them closely, remove them very often (daily) for checks and if a females has twins, they will rotate the cubs between the mother and the nursery. Experience has shown that females hardly ever can provide adequate care for twins so they take one from her after birth, care for it for 12 hours or so, and then give it back to the mother and take the other one into the nursery. This way each cub gets 50 % of the mother`s milk and proper socialisation and the infant mortality has dropped dramatically. I am not at all happy that the chinese still seperate the cubs from their mothers at 6 months, it is no longer necessary to produce that many cubs each year to sustain the captive population, but from the social point of view, 6 months with the mother is probably enough for a panda to learn social behavoir and that he/she is a giant panda and not a human, lol. A lot of the breeding pandas in China must be captive born and it seems it causes no problems. But for release, I would always make sure the panda is raised by its mother for 1,5 years and with as few contact to humans as possible...
Yes, the procedure for rearing twins- removing them alternately from the mother so each is 50% mother-raised, has certainly increased the number of cubs surviving. I don't object to that at all- they are manipulating them but the mother is able to fulfil her maternal instinct normally. But I think removing cubs at six months must be stressful for the mothers in particular and as you said, I don't think they need to get their females to breed every year now- surely the breeding facilities must be overrun with the young Pandas they have produced in recent years? For release programmes too I would definately agree the mothers and young should stay together for the more natural 1.5 years to ensure the young Panda is fully socialised. For those staying in captivity maybe six months is sufficient if they're in continual contact with other pandas afterward- thought it still smacks of 'Panda factory' to me and seems unnecessary .
