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News from the Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat
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July 9
Today, Tai Shan turned four years old! The Zoo's commissary staff made him a special frozen treat, a three-tiered “cake” made of water, bamboo, shredded beets, and beet juice. The icy masterpiece was topped with a “4,” constructed with bamboo. Thanks to everyone who came to the Zoo today to celebrate the big day, and to the hundreds of people from around the world who have 
sent him birthday wishes online.
See birthday photos of Tai Shan and a video about the making of the “cake.”
New Tai Shan Wallpaper for Donors!
Support the National Zoo's panda conservation efforts, and get lots of Tai Shan wallpaper and a screen saver as thanks for your donation to the Giant Panda Conservation Fund.Donate now.
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Ask questions, share tips, and get advice from the pros when you take the Photo Challenge. Been to the Zoo and taken photos of our pandas? Enter the Fujifilm Panda Photo Sharing Sweepstakes—your photo could be posted on our website, and you could win a great prize. Tips from a Zoo photographer and photos from the public have just been posted!Coming to D.C.? Book a Panda Hotel Package.
If you're looking for a great hotel for yourself, your family, or friends, book accommodations at one of ten area hotels partnering with FONZ. You'll get a fabulous gift box and support giant panda conservation!
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Watching giant pandas: The panda cams provide a window into the world of the Zoo's giant pandas—four-year-old Tai Shan, his mother, Mei Xiang, and his father, Tian Tian. There are only about 1,600 giant pandas living in the wild in China.
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More Giant Panda cams
Camera II
Giant Panda videos
Tai Shan Exam, September 19, 2005 | Mei Xiang and Tai Shan, October 2, 2005 | Tai Shan Exam, October 31, 2005 | Mei and Tai, November 10, 2005 | Tai Shan’s First Year (Highlights)
July 1
We recently planted three cryptomeria trees at the back of yard two. These large evergreens were rescued from the demolition for Asia Trail and have found their permanent home in the panda exhibit. The trees help to block the view of the building from the front of the exhibit, helping to create a forest for our pandas. So far the pandas have not even noticed them. Maybe this is because Mei Xiang and Tian Tian have been reintroduced for the year!
Their relationship always seems to pick up where it left off, with both pandas sharing their bamboo. Next there is a play session. The duration depends on the temperature, and it usually ends when Mei chases Tian back into his yard. Then it's time to go to sleep! Tian seeks out his air-conditioned grotto and Mei seeks out her ledge, on the side of her grotto. One can imagine that a similar cycle may repeat itself in the wild, with some communal bamboo grazing followed by a range of interactions from play bouts to fights, before each panda departs for its favorite napping place. With more and more research taking place in the field over these past few years, we look forward to more details about panda natural history.
A bullfrog has moved into yards three and four. We are hearing its loud, bass-level banjo strum in the middle of the day. Tai Shan interacted with it once at the moat edge, pawing at it and causing it to jump on his paw, which resulted in a similar leap upwards from Tai.
All the pandas have resumed their summer eating pattern. They have reduced their overall consumption of bamboo and are now eating leaves. They are more selective about which kind, as well as what part of the bamboo they will consume.
June 5
It has been very quiet around the exhibit lately as the pandas and staff settle back into a normal routine. It will be almost a year before the breeding season and the possibility of a birth cycle come around again—that’s if Mei Xiang returns to a more typical March-to-May breeding time frame. Panda years are long, while the years of our lives just fly by.
About seven to ten days after Mei’s hormones return to baseline, her maternal behaviors gradually disappear. Last week we cleaned out her abandoned nest. The drain grate “cub” was returned to its proper place, which pleased our plumbers, who had to clear her opened drain of shredded bamboo. Mei’s Kong toy and plastic ball “cubs” were also returned to their place on the enrichment shelves in the keeper area.
Tian Tian has been very mellow. He is sleeping the early summer days away in the grottoes, often skipping a meal as his appetite is beginning to decline. Bamboo loses some of its allure around this time every year. Tai Shan still has a great appetite. He weighed in at 205 pounds this morning. It is getting even more difficult to tell him apart from the adult pandas.
Giant pandas are black and white bears that live in temperate-zone bamboo forests in central China. Among the best recognized—but rarest—animals in the world, they have come to symbolize endangered species and conservation efforts. As few as 1,600 giant pandas survive in the mountain forests of central China. More than 160 pandas live in zoos and breeding centers around the world; most of these pandas are in China.
Giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are at the National Zoo on a ten-year loan from the China Wildlife Conservation Association. They are the focus of an ambitious research, conservation, and breeding program designed to preserve this endangered species.
