Baby Panda a Bundle of Joy for Zoogoers, Diplomats

Possessed of wisdom derived from disappointment, Chinese diplomat An Wenbin waited several days before venturing here to see the panda cub born Saturday.

When he finally made the trip Thursday, An was buoyant: The cub continues to defy the odds against survival for pandas born in captivity.

“This is very exciting,” said An, his country’s consul general in Los Angeles. “From the people of China, I want to offer congratulations to the world-famous San Diego Zoo.”

An was too diplomatic to mention it, but the cub born to Bai Yun and sperm donor Shi Shi has already survived longer than any other panda cub ever born in the United States.

In the 1980s, under the full glare of the national media, a panda pair at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., failed to produce a surviving cub despite four births spread over four seasons.

Even in China, which has had a captive breeding program since the early 1960s, the panda’s reproduction record is spotty, adding to the worry of conservationists that the woolly mammal with the enigmatic Mona Lisa-like stare is on a conveyor belt to extinction.

In some years, upward of 60% of captive-born cubs do not survive a week, for reasons scientists cannot explain. Also unexplained is why panda mothers sometimes roll over and smother their newborn--as a panda did a decade ago in Mexico City, killing her 8-day-old cub.

At San Diego, the yet-unnamed cub is under 24-hour observation by researchers glued to a television monitor. With each passing day, San Diego panda team leader Don Lindburg and others are increasingly confident that the 5-ounce cub is a keeper and that Bai Yun is a good mother.

“With a first-time mother, you never know,” Lindburg said.

Under the 12-year research loan that brought Bai Yun and Shi Shi to the San Diego Zoo in the fall of 1996, the cub belongs to the Chinese. After three years, the Chinese have the right to take home the cub, whose sex is still unknown because no researcher has yet dared venture close enough to look.

The zoo pays $1 million a year to China for that nation’s panda research and habitat preservation program. If the cub survives six months, the zoo has agreed to make an additional one-time payment of $600,000.

Mindful of the high rate of infant panda mortality, Chinese and San Diego Zoo officials included a grim bit of proration in the loan agreement. If the cub survives 30 days, the payment is $100,000; if it survives 60 days, $200,000, and so on.

That An and his government are happy could have repercussions stretching from Beijing to Washington. The National Zoo, part of the Smithsonian Institution, is petitioning the Chinese for another pair of pandas.

“The panda is a flagship animal for conservation,” said National Zoo spokesman Robert Hoage. “The presence of a pair of pandas in the National Zoo, visited by 3 million people a year, will give a psychic boost to the entire movement to save wildlife.”

The zoo’s female, Ling Ling, died in 1992 and the male, Hsing Hsing, has a progressive and terminal kidney dysfunction. There is a problem, however, with the National Zoo’s bid for pandas: money.

Because it does not charge admission, the National Zoo cannot match the $1-million annual payment that is part of the San Diego agreement and also the agreement that is expected to bring a pair of pandas to the zoo in Atlanta in late September. The best the National Zoo can do is $250,000 a year, Hoage said.

If the National Zoo can reach accord with the Chinese government on money, the zoo must still get a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The U.S. government permits pandas to be imported only for scientific study and breeding and has taken steps to prohibit zoos from making a profit from displaying pandas. Only San Diego and Atlanta have gotten permits; most zoos are scared off by the high cost and the rigorous research.

Among the mysteries that San Diego researchers hope to unravel by watching Bai Yun and Shi Shi is how pandas use scent marking to communicate. If the secrets of scent marking could be discovered, it could help in the development of “corridors” that pandas in the wild could use when their bamboo forest becomes fragmented.

Bar none, pandas are the most popular animals ever displayed in zoos. The Chinese have long used pandas for political purposes. Hsing Hsing and Ling Ling were a gift to the National Zoo in 1972 for President Nixon’s decision to reestablish ties with the Chinese after decades of mutual hostility.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have hit a rough patch in recent months over such issues as security for Taiwan. So far, panda politics seem undisturbed.

“The birth [Saturday] is symbolic of a new level of cooperation between East and West,” An said, “as we try to save this precious animal.”

In the last three weeks, panda triplets were born in Woolong and twins were born in Beijing. When combined with the San Diego birth, the events have led the press in China, where panda news is big news, to dub August “The Month of the Panda.”

For the duration of the nursing and dependency period, which could last until December, the San Diego Zoo panda exhibit is closed to the public. Closure has led to some consternation among zoo-lovers.

“Dad, the sign says we can’t see the pandas,” a preteen girl wailed Thursday as her family arrived at the ticket booth.

Plans are afoot for a giant TV screen to give patrons a look at mother and infant.

As for an explanation of the panda’s mystique, diplomat An said the answer is probably in the numbers. Less than a thousand are thought to remain in the wild.

“In China,” An said, “there is a saying: The less the number, the greater the treasure.”