Sloth Bear Cub Born At National Zoo

Sloth Bear in the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. Photo By Asiir

SLOTH BEAR CUB BORN
Our sloth bear Hana gave birth to one cub on December 19, 2012.

National Zoo’s Sloth Bear Gives Birth to a Cub

The female sloth bear at the Smithsonian's National Zoo gave birth to a single cub on Monday, Jan. 9. The cub was born in an inside den at the National Zoo's sloth bear exhibit.

National Zoo staff are monitoring the cub and its 11-year-old mother, “Hana,” via a camera mounted in their den, but Zoo veterinarians and keepers will not examine the cub for at least several weeks. They do not want to disturb the mother and cub during the critical first few weeks of the cub’s life to allow them time to bond. Zoo staff also hope to determine the cub’s gender at that time.

This is the third cub for Hana; she gave birth to two cubs in December 2004, but both cubs died within four days of being born. At birth, sloth bear cubs are very small, fragile, and dependent on maternal care. They are known to stay in their dens until they are two or three months old, and will stay with their mother for two or three years. Female bears are known to carry their young on their backs with the cubs holding on to the mother's long shaggy fur.

Young bear cub on mother.  Photo By L. Shyamal

No photographs or video of the cub are available. The cub's father, 24-year-old “Merlin,” may still be seen at the Zoo's sloth bear exhibit near the sea lion exhibit.

When Asia Trail opens this fall, sloth bears will be the very first animals Zoo visitors see when entering the main gates on Connecticut Avenue. They are one of seven species to be exhibited on the Zoo's Asia Trail, which will also include clouded leopards, Asian small-clawed otters and giant pandas. Asia Trail is scheduled to open in October.

Sloth bears are native to the tropical deciduous forests of India and Sri Lanka, with no solid estimate of how many remain in the wild. Sloth bears usually mate in early summer and females give birth six to seven months later. It is unknown how long sloth bears live in the wild, but these bears have lived up to 40 years in zoos. They are listed as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.


JANUARY 19, 2013
Time flies: Our sloth bear cub is one month old today! Hana continues to be very attentive to him or her, and keepers are still monitoring the pair closely through their closed-circuit cam. Because the cub’s dark hair is growing quickly, it’s getting tougher to spot. (If it turns just so, the white patch of fur on its chest gives its location away!)

Even if keepers can’t always see the cub nursing, they can hear that distinctive suckling sound as well as some typical squeaks and squawks. On occasion, they spot Hana and cub pawing at each other as though they are playing! Exercising those limbs is important, and the cub is almost on the go! It can push itself up using it’s front legs, but it has not yet mastered using its back legs. It will be another few weeks before it’s fully crawling and climbing aboard mom’s back.

DECEMBER 21, 2012
Forget two turtle doves—we’ve got two bearing bears! Our 18-year-old sloth bear Hana gave birth to a single cub around 8:30 a.m. on December 19, 2012—which happens to be her birthday, too! Animal care staff are keeping a close watch on the cub through a closed-circuit TV camera, and it appears both bears are doing great. Mom is very attentive, and the cub has successfully nursed. If the cub thrives, it will be a few months before it goes on exhibit. On warm winter days, Zoo visitors can watch the cub’s father, Francois, sunning himself on Asia Trail.


JANUARY 30, 2013
Hana and the cub continue to do well! Keepers are seeing the cub sit up more but it still hasn’t tried to climb onto Hana’s back. Hana leaves the den more frequently and eats small snacks on a daily basis, but she still spends the majority of her time in the den with the cub. We occasionally see Hana sitting next to the cub or going into the tunnel connecting the den to her outer enclosure, coming back to nuzzle the cub briefly, and then repeating. We wonder if she’s teaching that it’s okay when mom leaves because she’ll always come back? The cub is certainly becoming calmer when she leaves the den and not screaming at the top of its lungs like it did during those first few weeks!

Disheveled in appearance, the sloth bear leads a reclusive life in India's forests, noisily seeking out insects and fruits.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Sloth bears have shaggy, dusty-black coats, pale, short-haired muzzles, and long, curved claws that they use to excavate ants and termites. A cream-colored "V" or "Y" usually marks their chests. Sloth bears' nostrils can close, protecting the animals from dust or insects when raiding termite nests or bee hives. A gap in their teeth enables them to suck up ants, termites, and other insects.
SIZE:
Sloth bears grow five to six feet long, stand two to three feet high at the shoulder, and weigh from 120 (in lighter females) to 310 pounds (in heavy males).
GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION:
Most sloth bears live in India and Sri Lanka; others live in southern Nepal, and they have been reported in Bhutan and Bangladesh.
STATUS:
The sloth bear is listed as vulnerable on the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Animals.
HABITAT:
Sloth bears live in a variety of dry and wet forests, and also in some grasslands, where boulders and scattered shrubs and trees provide shelter.

Lion Training at The National Zoo

Our seven young lions have been working hard through the summer months! Instead of learning their ABCs, they’re learning behaviors that help animal care staff evaluate their health, including opening their mouth, showing their paws, getting up on a bench, and lying down in practice to receive a vaccination. We’ve been tracking their achievements—and adorable blunders—on camera. They’re certainly earning their meatballs and we think you’ll be impressed by their progress.

National Zoo Orangutans Turn High-Tech with Apps for Apes

 When great ape keepers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo were deciding how to add more variety and enrichment to their animals’ lives, they turned to Orangutan Outreach and a program that had seen great success in 12 other zoos around the world: Apps for Apes. With the tap of a finger, keepers are introducing the Zoo’s six orangutans to iPads, which provide unique stimuli. They found that 36-year-old Bonnie likes to bang on the drums, 16-year-old Kyle prefers the piano and 25-year-old Iris is content to listen to the soothing sounds of the koi pond while watching animated fish splash.

“Apps for Apes fits perfectly in this new era of zoo keeping,” said Becky Malinsky, great ape keeper at the National Zoo. “It’s about changing up the day-to-day lives of our animals. We already vary their food, toys and social interactions every day, but the iPad offers another way to engage their sight, touch and hearing.”

The Zoo began participating in the Apps for Apes program last year, when a keeper’s family member donated an iPad to the Great Ape House. Malinsky and fellow animal keeper Erin Stromberg talked with the other program participants to determine which apps were the most popular among orangutans. In the past few months, the Zoo’s repertoire has grown to more than 10 apps, including musical instruments, cognitive games, drawing programs and others. Eventually, the Zoo hopes to connect its orangutans with those at other zoos using video conferencing platforms.

Enrichment is an integral part of the daily care and quality of life for the animals at the Zoo. Staff study animal behavior and determine what kinds of enrichment are appropriate for each species and, occasionally, individual animals. They may alter an exhibit; train an animal; introduce new smells, sounds, foods and objects; or enlist an animal in a research project. Since 1994, the National Zoo’s orangutans have used touch-screen monitors as part of a cognitive study that tests orangutan memory, tool use and social learning.

“Apps for Apes is all about giving orangutans in human care choice over their environment,” said Stromberg. “With the iPad, we’re hoping to tap less into the critical-thinking outlet and more into a creative outlet. If they’re engaged in an app, we’ll keep going. If not, they have the choice to walk away.”

As the world becomes ever more tech savvy, Apps for Apes also helps visitors connect with the orangutans and raises awareness about the challenges these intelligent animals face in the wild.

“Primarily, we want the Apps for Apes program to help people understand why we need to protect wild orangutans from extinction,” said Richard Zimmerman, founding director of Orangutan Outreach. “We do that when we show Zoo visitors how similar humans and apes are, be it through observation, talking with wildlife experts or seeing the apes use the same technology we use every day.”

Native to Indonesia, orangutans live in the tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Over the past seven decades, humans have cleared land that was originally orangutan territory in order to meet the growing demand for palm oil products, fast-growing pulp wood and food crops leaving orangutans—which are solitary by nature—in competition with one another for space, food and mates. Scientists estimate that in the past 75 years, the number of wild orangutans has decreased by 80 percent. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Bornean orangutan as endangered and the Sumatran orangutan as critically endangered.

Fans who want to provide the National Zoo’s apes with additional engaging apps can purchase an iTunes gift card through the Giving Tree on the Zoo’s website. Orangutan Outreach is also accepting iPad donations directly and will distribute the tablets to zoos around the country. Institutions that previously lacked the resources to participate would then be able to offer their orangutans the iPad enrichment experience.

SMITHSONIAN CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE PUBLISHES TWO SIGNIFICANT PANDA STUDIES

Photo by Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian's National Zoo

Two new research papers by Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and partners will help conservation biologists make strides in saving the fewer than 1,600 giant pandas left in the mountain forests of central China. Over the years SCBI has worked to conserve giant pandas by studying every aspect of their lives—their natural history, reproductive physiology and optimal habitat.

Male Reproduction Surprises Scientists

The first paper, set to be published in the Biology of Reproduction's Papers-in-Press April 4, finds that male pandas, like female pandas, experience reproductive seasonality, but the time frame of reproductive viability differs greatly between the two sexes. Researchers have thoroughly studied female panda reproduction and found that a female panda's estrus cycle occurs only once a year for only 24 to 72 hours. Until now, no one has extensively studied the male giant panda's reproductive capacity over time. This study finds that males are reproductively viable for six or more months out of the year, which is significantly longer than females, indicating that the two sexes have evolved very different reproductive strategies.

Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) and Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN)
 have resided at the Smithsonian’s National
Zoological Park since Dec. 6, 2000. They
are the second pair of pandas to live at the Zoo.

"The giant panda is perhaps the most high-profile endangered species on Earth, and it is also one of the most well studied," said Dr. Copper Aitken-Palmer, lead author of the paper and SCBI's head veterinarian. "As such, it is amazing that we did not previously understand the basic physiological changes occurring in the male giant panda during the breeding season and outside of it. With this information, we now have a complete picture of what is occurring physiologically for both males and females during reproduction."

For three years, the paper's authors evaluated the interrelated seasonal changes in male panda testosterone levels, sperm concentration, testes size and reproductive behavior in eight male giant pandas with their colleagues at the Chengdu Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China. They found that unlike females, reproductive fitness in the male giant panda changes over time with sperm production already beginning three to five months before females enter estrus. According to Aitken-Palmer, these results show that male pandas have developed the ability to produce sperm over a long period of time to ensure they have sperm when the brief and unpredictable female panda estrus occurs.

Climate Change Claiming Panda Habitat

The second study, published in the International Journal of Ecology in March, used two different global climate models to find that more than 16,000 kilometers2 of giant panda habitat will likely be lost by 2080 as climate change causes giant panda habitat systems to shift to higher elevations and latitudes. That means that less than half of their already significantly decreased habitat is projected to be suitable in about 70 years. The two models take into account remaining habitat, lost habitat, potential new habitat and current protected areas for giant pandas. The study also finds that habitat fragmentation will likely increase, leading to smaller areas that can support fewer pandas farther away from each other, increasing the risks of inbreeding and population collapse.

1972: Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing (Shing-Shing), the
National Zoo’s first pair of giant pandas, arrived from
China in 1972 as a gift to the American people to
commemorate President Nixon’s historic visit to China

"Our research predicts that climate change will substantially decrease the amount of suitable giant panda habitat within the species' current distribution, but also that we may see new areas becoming suitable for giant pandas," said Melissa Songer, lead author of the paper and an SCBI wildlife ecology. "The question remains as to whether giant pandas will have the capacity and opportunity to shift to new areas should they become viable. Our work is an important step in developing climate adaptation strategies and in identifying critical areas that will most likely be suitable and accessible for giant pandas in the face of climate change."

In addition to calling for the development of more protected areas that are aligned with climate predictions, the paper emphasizes the importance of creating corridors to reduce fragmentation. The study also has land-use implications, as agricultural land and land near human settlements are unsuitable for pandas.

Visitors can visit two giant pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Although the two pandas have bred early in the year for the last few years, so far Mei Xiang has not gone into estrus this year. SCBI scientists, veterinarians and animal care staff continue to monitor both pandas' behavior and Mei Xiang's hormones in preparation for breeding season.

Mei Xiang (may-SHONG), the National Zoo’s female giant
panda, gave birth to a cub Sunday, Sept. 16, at 10:46 p.m.
National Zoo staff can hear the cub but have not yet seen it as
Mei Xianghas built a substantial nest in her den. This is the
 secondcub born to Mei Xiang and male panda Tian Tian
 (tee-YEN tee-YEN) as the result of artificial insemination.

In addition to Aitken-Palmer, the authors of the panda reproduction study from SCBI are Caitlin Burrell, Dave Wildt and the late Dr. JoGayle Howard. Partnering authors are Dr. Rong Hou, Zhihe Zhang and Chengdong Wang at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding; Rebecca Spindler at Toronto Zoo; and Mary Ann Ottinger at the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at the University of Maryland.

In addition to Songer, the authors of the panda ecology study from SCBI are Melanie Delion and Alex Biggs. The partnering author is Qiongyu Huang in the geography department at the University of Maryland. Friends of the National Zoo helped fund this research.

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute plays a key role in the Smithsonian's global efforts to understand and conserve species and train future generations of conservationists. Headquartered at a Smithsonian facility in Front Royal, Va., SCBI facilitates and promotes research programs based at Front Royal, the
 National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and at field research stations and training sites worldwide.