Are pandas the most misunderstood animal? - Lucy Cooke
In the late 1930s, a grand panda drama
unfolded at the Chicago Zoo.
Su-Lin, who had been a media darling
since she was a cub,
passed away.
Zookeepers were already in the process
of procuring another female panda
named Mei Mei,
and they were determined to find her
a mate before tragedy struck again.
So when they acquired a prospective suitor
named Mei Lan,
it seemed their troubles were over.
Magazines monitored their progress,
and the public eagerly awaited
the patter of tiny panda paws.
But the wait dragged on.
At first, headlines declared that Mei Mei
was "getting nowhere" with her love life.
But eventually zookeepers realized
their significant slip-up:
both bears were male.
This is just one of many mistakes humans
have made when it comes to pandas.
We've incorrectly classified
them as raccoons,
misrepresented them as cuddly vegetarians,
and— since the doomed union
of Mei Mei and Mei Lan—
declared them as incompetent lovers.
Some people have taken this even further,
suggesting it's remarkable
this sex-shy species
has been able to sustain
themselves at all.
However, this common perception of pandas
having low libidos
actually has more to do
with human incompetence.
When it comes to breeding pandas
in captivity,
zookeepers face multiple challenges.
As the Chicago case suggests, it can be
tricky to figure out a panda's sex.
Their external genitals don't appear
until they're a few months old,
and once visible, they look very similar.
This forces zookeepers to rely
on inconsistent methods,
like trying to measure the distance
between the anus and genitals,
or simply going by feel.
And even when males and females
are paired up correctly,
chemistry isn't guaranteed.
In one case at the Moscow Zoo,
a female bear that had been isolated
from other animals
proved more interested in zookeepers
than other pandas.
Complicating things further,
female pandas can only be impregnated
1 to 3 days each year
due to their incredibly short
ovulation window.
Zookeepers try to track fertility levels
by measuring the hormones in their urine,
but this data is often cryptic to decipher
and messy to capture.
Females have also evolved the ability
to reabsorb their own fetuses,
meaning that even a successful
impregnation can be reversed.
The difficulty of breeding pandas
has reinforced the idea
that they're not naturally
inclined to procreate.
But there's a huge gap between how these
animals behave in captivity
and the privacy of the wild.
Prowling through her home territory,
a female panda rubs her anal glands
on tree trunks to attract mates,
then waits in the treetops
bleating as loudly as she can.
Soon enough, males crowd around the tree
and compete for her attention
by seeing who can pee the highest.
Suitors adopt a variety of poses
in these competitions,
including the "squat," "legcock,"
and "handstand."
They're also known to dab urine
behind their ears
to broadcast their virility
through the breeze.
Once a female picks a winner,
the mating pair will often have sex
over 40 times in a single afternoon.
At these rates, you might expect
panda populations to be booming,
especially since panda sperm
is incredibly potent.
But females' short ovulation cycles
and ability to reabsorb fetuses
keep the population in check.
In the wild, young pandas are usually able
to witness at least one breeding season
before reaching sexual maturity,
giving them time to learn
the rituals of seduction.
But in captivity, pandas are never
able to learn these customs.
And while breeders have tried to kick
start young pandas' sexual awakenings
by showing them footage of mating elders
and offering them doses of Viagra,
none of these strategies have
worked consistently.
The most reliable approach they've
found is artificial insemination,
which has dramatically increased
the captive population
in the past few decades.
But if pandas are so much better
at reproducing in the wild,
one has to ask why are conservation
efforts so focused on breeding them.
Maybe our time would be better spent
protecting the pandas'
natural environments,
giving them all the space they need
to get down to business.
