Are giant pandas afraid of "panda people"? In order to make you reproduce, the keepers are very worried

Recently, a group of photos of "panda people" working have become popular. In order to prevent panda cubs from becoming dependent on humans, the staff need to wear panda-shaped suits to interact with pandas, and if necessary, they will smear the smell of giant panda feces and urine on their clothes to achieve a better "simulation" effect. These days, it's really not easy to take care of a little panda cub...

Panda people and pandas, thank you for your hard work | @CCTV News WeChat Official Account

Panda baby: This is what I will look like when I grow up! | @CCTV News WeChat Official Account

However, it is not just the raising stage that is worrying. When these babies grow up, their love life is also worrying: Pandas have difficulty mating, which leads to a low reproduction rate . It took nine years for the two giant pandas "Ying Ying" and "Le Le" in Hong Kong Ocean Park, China, to finally mate naturally. At that time, this good news even crossed the ocean and appeared on Trevor Noah's "The Daily Show at Home"...

First victory! | South China Morning Post

Why is it so difficult for captive giant pandas to mate? It is said that pandas have become rare animals because of their low reproduction rate and the continuous decline in their population. Is this true?

Why is it so difficult for captive giant pandas to mate?

This impression is probably because everyone has seen pandas in zoos. Since the Beijing Zoo first achieved artificial panda breeding in 1963, many zoos have also had their own giant panda babies. However, it is indeed very difficult to breed giant pandas in captivity. The main reasons are:

Unsuitable living environment

The most suitable environment for wild animals is their native environment, which includes climate, vegetation, terrain and many other factors. Just like people will suffer from acclimatization if they change their living environment, "captivity" changes the living habits and life patterns of animals . If animals feel uncomfortable, it will inevitably affect their behavior.

Giant pandas at the San Diego Zoo | Ajay Suresh / Wikimedia Commons

Captive pandas have poor physical fitness

Most wild animals can only mate during the estrus period. For them, mating and reproduction are very energy-consuming and require a year or even several years of accumulating nutrients in order to be in peak condition when entering the estrus and mating period.

However, pandas in captivity, especially male pandas, have relatively poor physical fitness, which directly leads to two problems.

The first is that male pandas cannot complete natural mating. For large animals that walk on four legs, it is not easy to complete mating while standing on two legs . For pandas, the difficulty is no less than that of a Homo sapiens doing a Thomas full spin. Individuals with little physical activity and poor physical fitness may not be able to complete mating.

Giant pandas in Wolong, Sichuan | Chi King / Wikimedia Commons

Second, if the male panda has a poor physical condition, it will affect other body functions, leading to problems such as poor sperm quality , lack of vitality and small quantity; even if mating is successful, the tadpoles may not be able to complete their mission.

Wild giant pandas exercise a lot every day and may walk dozens of kilometers of steep mountain roads in search of food. The activity area of ​​captive pandas is very small and mostly flat. Although some institutions have set up climbing frames and rocks for pandas, the amount of exercise pandas get in this environment cannot be compared with that in the wild .

Giant pandas at Beauval Zoo in France | Thesupermat / Wikimedia Commons

Difficulty communicating love and arranged marriages

Individuals that are artificially inseminated and artificially raised will have worse physical fitness. And don't forget that mating is a social activity. In order to improve the survival rate of cubs, a considerable number of captive pandas are artificially inseminated and taken away from their mothers after birth to be artificially raised by keepers. Pandas that grow up in this environment may have problems communicating with their own kind , not being able to arouse or respond to each other's affection, or the female pandas are unwilling to cooperate during mating and have difficulty in allowing the male pandas to penetrate.

In the wild, pandas often choose their mates through the mother choosing the man. Is this considered free love? British zoologist Lucy Cook also expressed a similar view in her book "The Unexpected Truth About Animals":

In the 1980s, researchers found that in the wild, female pandas would climb trees and call, and several male pandas would compete for the female's attention under the tree , and the lucky male panda would mate. But in captivity, most situations become "arranged marriages" decided by managers, and if two pandas don't attract each other , it's useless for the keepers to worry.

"Even if it's Maggie Cheung or Brigitte Lin, if there's no true love..." | Zairon / Wikimedia Commons

Seeing me in a relationship puts me under a lot of pressure

In addition, the interference of tourists may also be a reason for the difficulty of panda reproduction. For an animal that lives in the bamboo forests between mountains and leads a hermit-like life, the hustle and bustle of hundreds of blue star bipeds may cause great pressure on it, resulting in the pandas' reluctance to mate. For example, the two pandas in Hong Kong Ocean Park, China, failed to give birth to children after 9 years of attempts. However, shortly after Hong Kong Ocean Park was closed due to the epidemic , the good news of successful mating came out, which may be related to the lack of disturbance from tourists .

Wild pandas are very healthy

I have mentioned so many cases of "difficulty in mating" in captive pandas. Is it true that there is something wrong with the panda species itself and that it will be eliminated by nature? I don't think so. Henry Nichols, author of "A Gift from China: A Hundred Years of Encounter between Giant Pandas and Humans", believes that giant pandas are not a weak species: "They have existed for millions of years, longer than modern humans have existed. Pandas do have sex in a different way from us , but there is no reason to think that their reproductive method is less efficient than ours ."

Pandas are not actually a "celibate" animal. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding has bred many pandas | Pavel Špindler / Wikimedia Commons

Many scholars have observed wild pandas and found that they are strong, agile, and sensitive, and that reproduction is not difficult. Lucy Cook also wrote in her book that "male pandas can mate with female pandas more than 40 times in one afternoon ." Therefore, it is the complex reasons under captive conditions that make it difficult for pandas to mate and reproduce. If pandas were really stupid animals that had difficulty even reproducing, they would have been eliminated by nature long ago.

What to do with captive pandas

In order to solve the problem of mating and reproduction difficulties for captive pandas, keepers have racked their brains and tried various methods.

The first thing is to improve the environment of the captive panda cages , arrange the playground reasonably, provide the pandas with rocks, perches, trees and other objects for climbing , set a reasonable slope in the playground, and add a pool if conditions permit. In addition, when designing the cages, give the pandas a place to hide from the gaze of tourists when they are under too much pressure, so as to reduce the pressure on the pandas. So that the pandas can have a "home" that is closer to their native environment.

"I don't feel like seeing anyone today." | jetsun / Wikimedia Commons

Secondly, provide pandas with a reasonable "menu", make the ratio of pandas' "meals" more scientific, and change the feeding frequency. In the past, zoos often feed pandas at fixed times, but wild animals do not eat at fixed times. They eat when there is food, and often go hungry for one meal and full for the next. Some zoos simulate these characteristics to restore the living conditions of wild animals.

In addition, enrichment will be introduced. Enrichment is an important task to relieve stress for captive wild animals. Scientific enrichment can make animals in better physical condition . For example, a tire or a wooden stake will become a new toy for pandas who have lived in a fixed environment for a long time, and having new toys will make them very happy.

In addition, to teach panda cubs how to "socialize" , keepers will use various methods to let panda cubs understand how to get along and communicate with their own kind, and there are many very strange methods. On March 10, 2013, at the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, the five-and-a-half-year-old female panda Kelin refused to cooperate with mating during the estrus period. The keepers were very anxious. Later, one of the keepers had an idea and played a video of other pandas mating on TV for Kelin, and then Kelin successfully completed her own mating. The photo of Kelin observing and learning was selected by Time magazine as "the most amazing photo of 2013".

Giant panda cubs at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding | Joshua Doubek / Wikimedia Commons

I am curious. Pandas cannot distinguish colors. Do they think they are observing "yellow"? Do they see a lot of black and white areas moving? Can they tell that the image is of another panda?

Insects are the largest group of animals in the world today, accounting for more than four-fifths of all species on Earth. It can be said that our Earth is simply an "insect planet."

Author: Erzhu

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