Singapore-based panda Jia Jia may be in early puberty: scientist
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E-mail Xinhua, October 26, 2013
Jia Jia, the giant panda housed at Singapore's River Safari, is perhaps in the "early season" of puberty, though her boyfriend Kai Kai is showing little interest, the park's chief life sciences officer said on Friday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a veterinarians roundtable at the River Safari, Cheng Wen-Haur, chief life sciences officer of the park's operator Wildlife Reserves Singapore, said the keepers and vets have been monitoring the behavior of Jia Jia very carefully.
He admitted that the park is starting to look forward to panda cubs, saying that the experts from River Safari raised many questions for answers from panda experts from the zoos in the region, including those from Taipei and Chiang Mai, where pandas had given births to panda cubs.
"Yes. (It's) topmost on our minds as well. We want to know how to do it. When we can do it," Cheng said.
Kai Kai turned six on Sept. 14 this year, while Jia Jia turned five on Sept. 3. Both arrived in Singapore in September last year from a panda protection and research base in China's southwestern Sichuan province under a ten-year collaboration.
Cheng said both pandas, though still young, are coming to the age when they should be reaching puberty and showing symptoms "any time now."
Giant pandas typically reach puberty at around five to seven years old, though it may vary from one to another.
"We can't say that she was showing very obvious symptoms of coming on heat. But there were a few times that we think that, you know, hey ... some of her behavior may be indicating perhaps a slight increase in her female hormone," he said.
"Perhaps not full heat, but coming into the early season. We are observing her very carefully," Cheng added.
Kai Kai, the male panda, have a very strong interest in food and, with the munching, is very good exhibition animal.
"Kai Kai is very food oriented. From that point of view, he is very very good. But unfortunately, from the breeding point of view, he is not nearly showing enough interest in his girl friend," Cheng said.
Scientists have observed that the male pandas in captivity were often not showing enough interest, even when their girl friends show signs of wanting to mate.
Cheng said the veterinarian team at River Safari can still give the panda couple some more time and want it to come naturally to the pandas, but do not rule out anything in the arsenal.
The zoo in Macao, China, has tried showing love videos to the pandas to boost their chances of natural success at mating, with the male showing signs of being attentive, though whether this is truly helpful is still a question. Other interventions like artificial insemination are also among the options.
The panda experts from around the region gathered in Singapore following a proposal put forward by Claire Chiang, chairman of Wildlife Reserves Singapore.
Chiang said the experts at the meeting on Friday discussed nutrition, enrichment of the panda's living environment, and breeding. She said she is hoping for such exchanges to be held regularly.
"Judging from the questions that were raised today ... everybody says that this is great. For me the outcome is good. I have always said that animals are great for diplomacy," she said.
Experts at the roundtable said that they learned a lot from each other and the different practices and strengths of the zoos. Cheng said that River Safari may consider switching the dens for the two pandas regularly so as to make it a bit of a fresh experience for them.
Other topics discussed included the potential impact of the static environment on the puberty of the pandas and whether it is necessary to simulate the change of the seasons by adjusting the lighting to get increasingly long or short "night time."
Tang Chunxiang, a senior expert from the Sichuan-based China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, said that it is significant to have a meeting for panda experts from the zoos that are mostly in the tropics or sub-tropics such as Taipei, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong and Macao.
The experts from the Taipei zoo, which recently welcomed a panda cub, shared some of their practices.
Each of the zoos have their respective strengths, Tang said.
He also said that it may be a topic worth exploring whether a static environment is the best for the pandas though it is a very good simulation of the conditions at the pandas' natural habitat.
Tang, a seasoned expert involved in the protective breeding of pandas over the past decades, said that the ultimate aim of giant panda research is to ensure a sustainable and stable community of the pandas.
China's latest official statistics show that there are 1,596 giant pandas in the wild, while the captive population is 341.
The wild population of the pandas is distributed across many scattered and isolated habitats, leading to genetic pools that are often even narrower than the captive population.
China has been very successful with the breeding of the pandas in recent years and has embarked on reintroduction of captive bred pandas into the wild, with the aim of averting the trend of the wild population that somewhat shows a declining tendency. Endi
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