Short Wave - Bye Bye, Bei Bei: Giant Panda Heads to China

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

The Smithsonian's National Zoo is bidding farewell to Bei Bei. The 4-year-old giant panda will be sent to China on Tuesday, Nov. 19. While born in captivity at the zoo, Bei Bei is the property of China. Reporter Emily Kwong tells us about Bei Bei's elaborate departure plans, why he's leaving now, and what it would take to ensure the survival of giant pandas in the wild. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Maddie Safaya here with Shortwave reporter Emily Kwong. Hey, Maddie. Hey, you. So I saw you sneakle-snackling out of the office last week saying you were going to the zoo. I was going to the zoo to the Smithsonian's National Zoo here in Washington, D.C., because what's unfolding there is an international conservation story in the form of a furry, four-legged bamboo lover, a giant panda named Bebe. Hey, Bebe!

I'm so sorry. That's genuinely the panda's name, Maddie. I'm so sorry. Okay, Bebe the Panda. Yes, spelled B-E-I-B-E-I, meaning precious treasure in Mandarin Chinese. He was born on August 22, 2015, pink, hairless, and blind. As we all come into the world. Pretty helpless.

As a newborn, he's about the size of a stick of butter. Delicious. And his mother, Meshong, picked Bebe up, and, nestled him in her panda arms. And I know this because there's video footage of it from one of the many panda cams at the zoo. Many? Like multiple cams? Oh, yeah, Maddie, this is pandas we're talking about. No species has been the focus of a more expensive, globally reaching conservation effort than these black and white bears. Pandas were on the endangered species list for decades when we were kids, right? But because of this effort, pandas were delisted in 2016 and are now considered a vulnerable species.

And these pandas are like celebrities, right? Absolutely. This is Bebe's life and the life of a lot of zoo pandas, public adoration, endless amounts of bamboo. And if you're listening to this episode on November 18th when we publish, you still have a chance to watch this panda poop and play on the zoo cameras. But on November 19th, Bebe is taking a one-way trip to China. Today on the show, why the National Zoo is saying bye-bye to Bey-bay. And raising a panda in a zoo is one thing. But what would it take to actually ensure their survival in the wild?

Okay, Kwong, so Bebe the Panda, born at the Smithsonian's National Zoo, is leaving for China this week. Where in China? Okay, so he's going to the beefing shop panda base to one day make babies and boost China's panda population. Gotcha. Why is he going now? Because, Bey this year hit his fourth birthday. This is a video of him eating his birthday cake.

So many videos, Kwong. How many videos do you have from your childhood? None. I was a second child. My parents were very tired. Go on. Okay, I'm not going to get into that right now. But I will tell you that for all the love zoos in the United States show their pandas, they're still the property of the Chinese government. They're here on temporary loan. Ooh, I didn't know that.

And the National Zoo in D.C. has bred and raised these pandas. panda cubs in captivity in cooperation with China's conservation efforts with the understanding they'll one day be sent to China. And I guess Bebe was one of those cubs. Exactly. After four years here, the plan was always to send Bebe to China to make more Bebe's. Okay. Had to do it.

So I imagine for the zookeepers, that's going to be, you know, like a little tough. Definitely. When I snuck out of the office to visit the zoo last week, bye-bye Bebebe celebrations were in full swing. Like with balloons or what are we talking about? With treats. Pumpkin spice, apple sauce, the pandas were basically getting spoiled, and visitors were penning goodbye postcards, like six-year-old Ruben Goldberg. I really miss you.

Yeah, what is your favorite part of Bebe's life? When is eating? The panda's diet is almost exclusively bamboo. Oh, oh, my gosh. I had never seen a panda in real life until this moment. Holy, whoa, they're huge. Oh, I'm sorry, I was not expecting this. I didn't realize how big they were.

Kwong, you sound so happy. I'm definitely impressed after seeing Bebe's parents who were going to town on some bamboo. Their bite strength is close to that of a lion's. Whoa. But the panda of the hour, Bebe, he was actually fast asleep in his hammock. Bebe is passed out with stalks of bamboo

draped around him, almost like someone who's fallen asleep with an open box of pizza on their lap. It's probably a pretty solid. analogy. That's Devin Murphy, a spokeswoman at the zoo. Honestly, that's the most I've ever related to a panda. Falling asleep with food just raped all over you. Yeah. Fair. Bay Bay Baye's life of eating and sleeping and being admired by the public in this way is about to change. And one of the zookeepers that will join him in this flight to enter China and their captive breeding program is

Lori Thompson. My name is Laurie Thompson and I am the assistant curator of giant pandas. Lori was there when Bebe was born, trained him, and describes him as independent, laid back, and intelligent. Looking at the pandas myself, it's so easy to anthropomorphize them. Like, give them human characteristics. Yeah, but Lori, as a zookeeper, wants to make it really clear, the panda is truly a bear. I respect who they are as their species and their individual traits, but I don't look at them as, like, family or, you know, they're just, they are who they are. and I spend a lot of time with them. And protecting pandas has meant learning the particulars of how to care for their species.

Those who monitor the panda cams log the behavior of all three of the zoo's pandas every four minutes. I mean, this is a lot of money and a lot of effort for one species. Yeah, I would say there's a few reasons pandas get a lot of attention. They've been used as a diplomatic tool of the Chinese government over the decades. they've been given and loaned. Pandas are the poster children of conservation. But Melissa Sanger, a conservation biologist with the Smithsonian, had a scientific explanation that really taught me something.

She pointed out that when you save the panda, and more importantly, the panda's natural habitat, you're actually saving other species that live there. The panda is what we call an umbrella species. And so, for example, in the 80s, there were 12 protected areas for the giant panda. Now there are 67. There are an estimated 4,000 known species that are also sharing that habitat.

Whoa. Species that are not inspiring people the way giant pandas do. And so when we're protecting these areas for giant pandas, we're protecting all these species as well. Okay. Okay. I'm getting on board. Yeah. An umbrella species.

There's also this idea that pandas are bad at sex. Yes, I've heard this, that they're like they won't have sex in a zoo, no matter what you do. It is true that pandas have struggled to reproduce in captivity. And in fact, Bebe and all of his siblings, they've all been created through artificial insemination. His parents actually struggled to get the positioning right for sex. But there is research showing that pandas can reproduce successfully in the wild so long as their habitat is kept pristine. So it's fair to say, when left to their own devices, they're not bad at sex. Panda sex myth busted.

Thank you, Kwong. We do a public service here on Shurban. wave. For pandas to be successfully reintroduced into the wild, though, to survive and reproduce, they have to be able to find each other. And that's tough. They're kind of solitary. And while overall panda habitat has grown in China, a 2017 study in the journal Nature, ecology, and evolution, said the forest is still being broken up by development, a process known as fragmentation. So these wild pandas are isolated from each other, which is a big problem for an animal that only reproduces two to three days out of a given year.

Is that because the females can only get pregnant once a year? That's it, exactly. There's just a small window of time. So while humans have certainly helped save the panda, their activity has also put them in danger in the first place. And then Melissa points out there's the unknowns of climate change. We don't know how the changes in climate in terms of increasing temperatures and changes in precipitation.

How is that going to impact the bamboo that they're dependent on? And so that's another area of focus that we're working on in terms of trying to understand using climate change models. How do we expect the forest to shift in 50 years and 80 years and so forth? So you got me all worked up that we've saved the panda and now you're telling me that they're still in trouble. Their habitat may be. And I will say there are a number of scientists working on the habitat part of the equation, restoring bamboo forests, creating these habitat corridors for the pandas to, you know, liaise. Meet up.

Meet up. And while Bebe will never be introduced into the wild, his offspring might one day. First order of business, though, he has to get on this plane to China. And when Lori and the zoo's chief veterinarian Don Knifer arrive, they'll get Bebebe situated in his new home at Beefing Shaw. What are you going to say to Bay Bay Bay when it's time to... What are you going to do or what are you going to say to Bay Bay Bay when it's time to say... real goodbye in China. Oh, goodness.

That's going to be hard. I think I'll probably just tell them be a good boy. And you're going to make me cry. Thinking about it. I don't want to think about it. I get a little bit longer, though, than the keepers here, so they'll all be, you know, upset the day we leave, and I get a little bit more time, a couple more days.

And the zoo will continue to care for Babeae's adult parents, Tien Tien, and Mae Sean. Their contract is up in 2020. It is up to the zoo to request an extension and up to the Chinese government to grant it. That's how panda conservation works. One contract at a time. This is shortwave from NPR. I'm Emily Kwong.

And I'm Maddie Safaya. This episode was produced by Tiny Human Panda, Rebecca Ramirez, and edited by regular human, Viet Le. We'll see you tomorrow.