April 2003:
The Memphis Zoo enters into the realm of live giant panda bears at the zoo. A 3-year old female named Ya Ya (pronouned Yah Yah) which means "beautiful little girl" arrives from the Bejing Zoo. She weighs in at 170 pounds and is known for her playful personality.

Le Le (prounounced Luh Luh) is a five year old male from Shanghai Zoo, China. Hisa name translates to "happy happy". He is known for his insatiable appetite ofr bamboo and after observing him for a while, he lives up to his translated name.
Both panda's, per normal protocol will be quarantined for 30 days to allow for the zoo staff to make sure both animals afree of desease and danger to the population.

16 January 2003:
Gao Gao (pronounced gow-gow), a 13-year-old wild-born panda, arrived at the San Diego Zoo on January 15, 2003. He joins the Zoo as part of its 12-year research loan agreement with the People's Republic of China.

SBC Foundation, a supporter of the Zoo's giant panda program, funded the air and ground transportation for the panda's arrival. Gao Gao, accompanied by a Zoo veterinarian and three representatives from China's Center for Research and Conservation of the Giant Panda, flew in a freight plane from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Gao Gao was then driven to the Zoo's hospital where he was placed in quarantine for a minimum of 30 days.

For the past year Gao Gao has resided at the Wolong Nature Reserve. He was rescued from the wild at six months old due to dehydration and an injury assumed to be from another panda. Gao Gao is described as rambunctious and will give Zoo researchers an opportunity to observe the actions of a male panda in the prime of his life.

Shi Shi, a male panda who arrived at the San Diego Zoo on loan in 1996, went back home to the Wolong Nature Reserve in the Sichuan Province of China in early January 2003 . He spent six years in the United States as part of the Zoo's research program and fathered Hua Mei through artificial insemination. Hua Mei is the first surviving giant panda cub to be born in the United States.

28 November 2002:
China has cleared two technological hurdles and faces just one more before it can begin cloning the endangered giant panda, the scientist heading the project told colleagues.

Chen Dayuan summed up his findings in a speech Sunday at a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of a panda research center in the southeastern city of Fuzhou, which has assisted in the cloning effort, according to a colleague who was there. "Only one more problem stands between our country and successful cloning of pandas," according to the state-run Xinhua news agency, which reported on the speech.

Other Chinese scientists said they doubted the program could be that close, questioning whether its results could be consistently replicated in a laboratory.

The project, based in a Beijing lab operated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been widely criticized by Chinese scientists. They call it too expensive and say protecting southwest China's mountain forests is a better way to save the 1,000 pandas left in the wild.

Mr. Chen told colleagues the last challenge was figuring out how to keep a panda fetus alive in a surrogate mother's womb until it was mature enough for birth, recounted the head of the Fuzhou Panda Research Center, Chen Yucun. Chen is a common name in China and the two are not related.
Chen Dayuan said researchers had come this far by successfully solving two other large problems: How to create a panda embryo using the ovum of a different species and how to implant the embryo in the uterus of a surrogate mother, also of a different species.

Researchers used the ovum of a rabbit because only one in five panda females is even capable of producing a fully developed ovum, Mr. Chen was quoted as saying by his colleague.

The low fertility contributes to the pandas' famously slow rate of reproduction.

After creating their first man-made panda embryo in late 1998, Chinese scientists finally succeeded last year in implanting one into the uterus of a cat, Mr. Chen said.

The cat died two months later and the experiment has not been successfully repeated, he said.
For the next step, Mr. Chen said scientists would choose a surrogate mother from a species closer to pandas, like a bear.

Wang Dajun, a panda researcher at Peking University, said he had not seen evidence that Chen Dayuan's group had figured out how to consistently create a panda embryo from a rabbit ovum.

"Cloning is meaningless to saving the panda. Even if several individuals were cloned, they might be too short-lived or unhealthy," Mr. Wang said. "If we depend on cloning, the pandas will be gone before the technology becomes viable."

27 November 2002:
China has declared its panda breeding programme a major success, and it has nine furry new-borns to prove it. They owe their existence to scientists in southeast China who, using artificial insemination techniques, have succeeded this year in breeding nine giant pandas in captivity - a record for a 12-month period.

In an effort to save the endangered species from extinction, researchers are using all the latest scientific reproduction techniques at their disposal and, in doing so, they are hoping to pull the panda away from the brink of extinction.

Most of the pandas are bred through artificial insemmination. Once born, they require 24-hour intensive care and are kept in high-tech incubators for the first few months of their lives. China hires its pandas out as attractions to zoos around the world. One of these has recently given birth to a cub in Japan, raising this year's number of captive new borns to 10 world-wide.

Giant pandas are one of the world's oldest and most famous endangered species. Poaching and human encroachment have destroyed much of their natural habitat. It is estimated that only about 1000 pandas still live in the wild, mainly in the remote mountains of southwest China.

Pandas have notoriously low libidos. In zoos, most refuse to breed, and even in the wild, many males seem uninterested in mating. Hoping to rear new generations of pandas and eventually release them into the wild, Chinese researchers are also looking into new cloning methods.

A researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced this week that cloning pandas could soon become a reality. He said that, once an implanted panda embryo can fully develop in the body of another species, then cloning will no longer be a dream.

Cloned embryos have already been implanted into the womb of other species, but research on making the embryo develop properly continues.

25 November 2002:
International panda experts have designed computer software to help the charismatic and endangered bears find their ideal mates, a newspaper reported today.

The software, developed by experts at a meeting in China, would analyse the health and bloodlines of each panda in captivity to find the best match while avoiding close relatives, the Star Daily said.

Plagued by habitat loss, only about 1000 giant pandas live in the wild bamboo-filled mountains in western China. The country protects hundreds more of the adored black-and-white bears in zoos, but it has proven difficult to tempt them to mate. In the wild, female pandas usually give birth to a single cub only once every two to three years.

In April, middle-aged panda Ling Ling was sent home to Japan from a Mexico City Zoo where he failed to romance three female pandas. Zookeepers said Ling Ling, on his second "Mission Impossible" in Mexico, was not interested in his potential mates.

27 March 2002:
It's springtime, and for San Diego Zoo panda resident, Bai Yun, that means going through her annual mating ritual -- artificial insemination.

The zoo announced Wednesday that its Giant Panda Conservation Team completed two procedures this week to artificially inseminate Bai Yun with semen from Shi Shi, her perpetually uninterested male counterpart.

Panda experts decided this was the best week because of her estrus level, said Barbara Durrant, a reproductive physiologist who performed the procedure.

"Combining her behavioral changes with Shi Shi's lack of interest in natural mating led us to conduct the operation at an optimal time with the help of our veterinarians, anesthesiologist and keepers," Durant said.

It will be months before keepers know if the panda is pregnant.

In 1999, Bai Yun gave birth to Hua Mei, the product of artificial insemination.

Last year's artificial insemination attempt was unsuccessful. This marks the fifth time Bai Yun has been inseminated since she and Shi Shi arrived in 1996 on an 11-year loan from China.

Because of Shi Shi's advanced age, keepers used frozen semen previously collected from him for the first time this year.

Bai Yun and Shi Shi will be off exhibit until further notice. Hua Mei can be seen in an alternative exhibit next to the regular giant panda enclosure, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

27 March 2002:
Tian Tian may be ready for sex, but Mei Xiang definitely isn't. The two pandas, star attractions at the U.S. National Zoo, were staying apart on Wednesday after some testosterone-fueled rough play on Sunday sent female Mei Xiang scrambling into the safety of her favorite tree, where she stayed for 36 hours.

"She's trying to avoid him right now," said Lisa Stevens, the zoo's curator of pandas and primates. "And basically right now we're going to take our cues from their behavior and give them the opportunity to interact through mesh ... When she's ready to interact, we're going to make that happen."

Stevens said Mei Xiang, 205-pound 3-year-old, appeared to looked nervous but that was hard to determine as she lolled on a ledge in an outdoor enclosure, obligingly posing for tourists' photographs and occasionally chewing bamboo.

By contrast Tian Tian, 4-year-old 265-pound, had a slightly morose aspect as he clambered into the very tree where Mei Xiang had taken refuge when they were together.

The change in Tian Tian's behavior toward Mei Xiang could indicate Tian Tian is ready to breed, Stevens said in an interview.

"He is four years old and his testosterone levels are rising," she replied, when asked what caused the male panda to play aggressively with the female. "Male pandas go through a rut period in the spring and it looks like he's experiencing his first rut." The rut period is a time of increased sexual excitement and activity for males.

"After this very rough interaction on Sunday, Mei Xiang basically retreated to her favorite resting place and she stayed there," Stevens said. "She definitely was surprised by the intensity of his interactions and she seems to be very cautious and very nervous about approaching him right now."

Stevens said zoo researchers plan to monitor the pandas' hormone levels and correlate these with their behavior.

Even though Mei Xiang is not ready for sex at this point, she may be ready later this year, Stevens said. The youngest panda to breed in China was Mei Xiang's age.

"It's still possible this year, but I guess the thing to remember is that ... she may have a year or even two before she shows signs of being ready to breed," Stevens said.

If and when the pandas at Washington D.C. reproduce, any offspring will be sent to China after two years as part of an agreement between the zoo and China, the curator said.

21 February 2002:
Panda keepers and researchers met at the San Diego Zoo Thursday to stress the importance of information-sharing between countries so the species can be spared from extinction.

Fernando Gual-Sill, general director of zoo parks in Mexico City, gave the "State of the Panda" address.

"There are approximately 140 giant pandas in zoological facilities around the world, and it's vitally important that we all work together, share ideas, knowledge, personnel and resources," said Don Lindburg of the San Diego Zoo.

"We all have to work together as a team to learn everything we can about pandas so that we can help boost their numbers."

Lindburg cited the milk replacement formula developed by San Diego Zoo nutritionist Mark Edwards and shared with the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in China. Since the Wolong facility started using the milk, the survival rate of orphaned cubs being raised in the nursery has increased 90 percent, according to the zoo.

In addition to the three pandas living at the San Diego Zoo, pairs are on display at Zoo Atlanta and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City's Chapultepec Zoo has three. Japan, Germany and China also have pandas in zoo settings.

However, San Diego Zoo pandas Hua Mei and Shi Shi are scheduled to return to China later this year, according to zoo officials.

27 February 2001:
The San Diego Zoo reported today that Hua Mei and Bai Yun, the giant panda mother-daughter duo at the World-Famous San Diego Zoo spent their last hours together on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001. "Giant pandas are solitary animals by nature and by this stage of development in the wild, panda cubs and their mothers would be parting ways and seeking their own territories," said Don Lindburg, giant panda team leader at the San Diego Zoo.

The pandas will now be exhibited separately. Hua Mei can still be observed live via the PandaCam.
Update courtesy of the San Diego Zoo

07 January 2001:
Mei Xiang, means "beautiful fragrance" in Chinese. But if you pronounce it "may sh-ONG," which is the pronunciation put out by zoo officials, where the "may sh-ONG" pronunciation is written on the wall of the Panda House, it could be intrepreted as though you are calling her "beautiful bear" or "beautiful fierce" or something a lot less complimentary.

Other possible pronunciations: may she-yahng, may shee-Ahng, may sheeAHNG, may shee-Ahaung, may she-ahng, may sh'ahng and even mayshee-Ahng, in one word instead of two.

"The trick is how to write it so it can be easily pronounced by Americans or English speakers," said Charlie Heyda, of Bethesda, a scientific linguist with the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. "The way the zoo has it is just not a correct interpretation."

Barbara Gilbert-Chen, of Alexandria, wrote a letter to The Washington Post's editorial page, asking that the newspaper stop using the phonetic key that was recommended by the zoo citing a Chinese speaker hearing Mei Xiang's name pronounced as may sh-ONG would intrepret it as meaning "Beautiful Fierce," or possibly "Beautiful Bear," but not as "Beautiful Fragrance."

"We talked with the Chinese at the Wolong Nature Reserve, and we also double-checked it with officials at the Chinese Embassy just to be sure," said Robert Hoage, the zoo's spokesman. "We'd have to be convinced there is an egregious error before we'd change (the pronunciation)."

He also agreed, to consult the zoo's resident experts, the two Chinese panda keepers who are spending the next month in Washington while their former charges adjust to their new home.

Perry Link, a professor of Chinese at Princeton University, favors "may shee-Ahng." He considered, and rejected, the notion of putting an apostrophe between "shee" and "ahng," as some have suggested. Putting an "h" toward the end of the phonetic key is absolutely essential, Link said, to keep Americans from saying "she-yang," which is incorrect.

Link and others noted that the pronunciation of Chinese can be a problem because, like English, it varies enormously from region to region. There are nonstandard pronunciations for Mandarin, the official language of the People's Republic of China and one of five major Chinese dialects.

Heyda, of the Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the official pronunciation should be "mayshee-Ahng," noting that when Chinese publications wrote about the zoo's previous pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, they did not put any spaces between the letters in their names but also admitted that language purists can't have everything. "The [Chinese] tones have to be left out of it for English speakers," he said. "That would just be too hard."

21 December 2000:
The National Zoo in Washington D.C. has installed two seperate Panda Cams online for viewing Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. Visit them at http://pandas.si.edu/pandacam/index.htm. There are currently two seperate ways to view the pandas: by streaming video or Live-still images.

06 December 2000:
We very excitedly welcome Mei Xiang and Tian Tian who arrived safely this afternoon at Dulles International Airport on a specially equipped Federal Express MD-11 jet named "Panda One" and transported to the National Zoo in Washington D.C.

On a side note: to date, there have been 11 cubs born at the Wolong Panda Reservation in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, PRC. this year. It is believed at this time that all 11 cubs are still alive

12 October 2000:
PANDA 2000 - 15-18 October 2000 - Bahia Hotel in San Diego, CA, USA. Panda 2000 is an international conference hosted jointly by the Zoological Society of San Diego and World Wildlife Fund-US, With assistance from relevant giant panda organizations in China. As a result of increase collaborations between East and West, there are signs of heightened societal awareness of the giant panda's rareness and plight. The main objective of the Panda 2000 International Conference is to achieve agreement on the most critical goals for panda conservation, to fortify existing collaborations and develop new ones for achieving those goals, and to enhance international understanding in areas of policy.

19 June 2000:
The University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof and other University delegates embark on a 15-day journey to China to promote and reestablish educational, business and alumni ties that has spanned decades. Trip plans include discussions about the possible loan of Chinese art exhibits and a giant panda bear.

22 May 2000:
The Chinese Embassy announced on Sunday that Beijing has given final approval tolend two giant pandas to the Washington D.C. National Zoo, a deal that was made in record time with help from influential political figures.

The zoo and Chinese officials will hold their next meeting this summer to negotiate final arrangements, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small said at a news conference held at the zoo. He would not speculate on when the pandas might arrive, but others have said it could be a year or more before the U.S. and Chinese permits are granted and the zoo's "Panda House" is renovated.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now must grant permits for the pandas before they can be imported.

The Smithsonian Institution, which operates the zoo, has agreed to donate $1 million a year for 10 years to China to basically rent the pandas. Chinese and U.S. officials say the money will go toward the continued research and conservation of the giant panda.

A coalition of private donors has pledged about half of $10 million needed to finalize the deal with China to bring two pandas to Washington's National Zoo. Spokesman David J. Umansky has confirmed that the Smithsonian Institute has already has received commitments of $5.8 million toward the $10 million cost.

Among the big donors the zoo is counting on to underwrite the transaction is the City of Washington. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said in a letter to Small that he will ask the D.C. Council and the D.C. financial control board to kick in $1 million toward the panda effort, saying the investment "would leverage millions of dollars in additional tax revenue" from tourists.

U.S. and Chinese officials still have to determine which male and female pandas will be chosen, when they will be delivered and other details. It is hoped that one male and one female "captive-born pre-productive" giant panda will arrive as quickly as possible.

What is known is that China, as with the San Diego Zoo and the Atlanta Zoo arrangements, will retain ownership of the male and female pandas, as well as any offspring the pair may produce.

04 December 2000:
Mei Xiang (female, born: 22 July 1998) and Tian Tian (male, born: 27 August 1997), the newest giant pandas are expected to arrive on Wednesday, 06 December 2000 at the U.S. National Zoo in Washington D.C. from Wolong Nature Reserve in Chegndu, P.R.C. as part of the 10-year, $10 million deal between the U.S. and China.

The animals will travel on a donated Federal Express cargo plane in specially made lightweight metal crates with enough room for them to stand and turn, a port door for feeding in transit and a hatch at the bottom for waste. Two Chinese keepers will travel with them.

The National Zoo has committed $3 million and more than two dozen staff for research projects and training workshops for Chinese keepers and scientists. Much of its work will be done in cooperation with ZooAtlanta and San Diego Zoo.

Scientists plan to study factors that influence successful mating, analyze the nutritional content of bamboo consumed by captive and wild pandas, and research the kind of exhibits that please captive giant pandas.

In addition studies on panda diseases, reproductive biology and analyzing panda milk to help develop a substitute for cubs that need to be hand-raised. Zoo scientists also plan to do research to prepare pandas for reintroduction to the wild and help with the panda census in China.

The pair will reside in the $2 million newly renovated Panda House which will have ponds, trees to climb, sand wallows, water showers and more than 20,000 square feet to roam.

Mei Xiang (pronounced may sh-ONG and means "beautiful fragrance") and Tian Tian (pronounced t-YEN, t-YEN and means "and more") are expected to go on public display early next month after the mandatory quarantine period to let them adjust and make sure they are free of disease.

National Zoo officials say the two are accustomed to noise and people from their time in Wolong, so they should adjust easily. In fact, most Chinese zoos allow visitors to pet and feed their wild animals, something forbidden in most U.S. zoos.

 11 February 2000:
While habitat loss threatens the existence of species all over the world, illegal poaching poses an additional threat to animals in Asia, where large-scale smuggling of pelts and animal parts for Chinese medicine amounts to a billion-dollar industry. But this year, tigers, giant pandas, elephants and leopards have found a friend in the Chinese government.

A new anti-smuggling bureau in China recently arrested the operators of a large-scale illegal animal operation. According to Hu Pan of the Environment News Service, officials of the bureau confiscated over 2,000 wildlife skins in the largest crackdown on smugglers since 1949. China's new enforcement efforts are crucial if the highly endangered Asian tiger (already nearly extinct in China itself) and the giant panda are to be saved. Joshua Ginsberg of the Wildlife Conservation Society credits for progress made against poachers to "better laws and enforcement in consumer countries."

11 February 2000:
Hua Mei goes on public display today at San Diego Zoo and zoo officials are bracing for "panda-monium."

Exhibit hours are 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific, but may be adjusted. Zoo officials say anyone planning to visit should call first at "888-my panda."

Don Lindburg, leader of the zoo's panda team, says he expects the cub and her mother, Bai Yun, to be on display every day because Hua Mei's first contacts with outsiders -- visits over the past few weeks by reporters and special guests -- haven't fazed her and during her inaugural display to the general public saw the 5-month-old sleep right through it.

And, you may ask, what about the two new 2-year old cubs at ZooAtlanta? Yang Yang and Lun Lun appear comfortable and adapting nicely in their new $7 million, 14,000-square-foot habitat. Yang Yang and Lun Lun enjoy an outdoor climbing wall, a swing and a hammock, which they fight over like children. They wrestle and explore and eat their bamboo stalks grown especially for them in Atlanta.

With a little work, visitors can tell them apart. Lun Lun, at the moment the heavier of the pair, has a rounder face. Yang Yang has a ridge across his nose and white tips on the toes of his left hind foot.

Intelligence is not their strongest trait. Most dogs are smarter than a panda, the ZooAtlanta zoo keeper says. Yet both Yang Yang and Lun Lun seem to be blessed with a good nature and have displayed no aggression toward the public or their keepers.