She's a sensation, a California girl loaded with star quality. More than 100,000 visitors flock to her Internet site every month, with a live Web camera tracking her every move. A national TV documentary scours every sizzling detail of her life. Gawkers in tour buses line up outside her home and surrender to her charms in hushed gasps and fawning whispers.

      That's the life of, well, a panda.

      Especially when she's Hua Mei, the only panda born in captivity in the United States to survive beyond four days of life. In August, as Hua Mei celebrates her second birthday at her San Diego Zoo habitat, would it be hyperbolic to proclaim that she's the most celebrated, observed and otherwise adored furry being of all time? To take it further, would it be scientific sacrilege to suggest she is no less than the most important animal on Earth?

      Hua Mei has emerged as the quintessential poster girl of endangered species. With a lift of her furry head and soft, round paw, she effortlessly inspires what can be described as "the cuddly effect."

      For hours before zoogoers, she lounges about, back to her audience. No one complains. By midday, however, Hua Mei takes a star turn. She sits up and munches down a pile of bamboo branches as if they were pretzel rods. The crowd starts buzzing. Fathers lift children on their shoulders. A cacophony of clicking cameras and rolling video recorders unfolds. Spectators reach out with extended arms. "She's close enough to touch!" one shouts.

      "She's so cute, with her little face, eating the bamboo," says Rebecca Ralston, an 11-year-old visitor from Foothill Ranch, California. "She's like a big teddy bear."

      But a living one ─ a key point that connects with young people here.

      As Rebecca puts it: "We need to do everything we can to make sure we keep pandas around. They may only be a memory if we don't."

      "Pandas are unique creatures," says Don Lindburg, who heads up the giant panda conservation team at the San Diego Zoo. "They came down from their mountain homes and immediately were declared citizens of the world. People get excited about seeing an adult panda. But they become even more excited about a cuddly little infant who has survived. It translates to a universal sense that pandas should always be a part of nature. If you protect them, then you're calling attention to protection of all of the ecosystems that allow species to survive."

      To see Hua Mei up close, she's like oh-so-many stars, somewhat smaller than depicted onscreen. Clearly ambivalent about pleasing crowds dying to see her soulful black eyes, she's more likely to shove her back to them and offer a view of her derriere instead.

      "She's really into lounging, isn't she?" observes one zoo visitor.

      "Well," replies another, "it's not like she has a job."

      The zoo's panda exhibit narrator offered an apology: "Pandas aren't the most high-energy animals ..."

      Reproductive physiologist Barbara Durrant isn't called Hua Mei's "daddy" for nothing. Once Hua Mei's mom, Bai Yun's peak estrus period was pinpointed in April 1999, Durrant successfully artificially inseminated her. But months passed before anyone knew Bai Yun was pregnant. In fact, the zoo didn't know until three days before Hua Mei was born that August.

      At birth, Hua Mei resembled a pink lizard the size of a cell phone, but everyone was enthralled.

      Because Hua Mei survived, the zoo team was able to study behavioral characteristics previously uncharted. For starters, it's always been a mystery why new panda mothers, who typically have twins, abandon one baby. Bai Yun's postpartum reaction offered clues. Her infant weighed about 4 ounces; at 200 pounds, Bai Yun stood 800 times the size of Hua Mei. How gently she had to hold the baby, and hold her dearly she did. Bai Yun clutched her baby to her chest and didn't let go for two weeks, going without food or water the first five days. Such intensity has led scientists to reason that caring for two infants at once is overwhelming for a panda mom. After this period, however, Bai Yun eased Hua Mei into the concept of separation time. By day 50, she would leave her cub half of the time. And by day 70, Hua Mei was the zoological equivalent of a latchkey kid , with Mom heading out to chow down or sleep 80% of the time. Now, Hua Mei is completely detached from Bai Yun, residing in a separate den.

      Wolong has the most captive pandas in the world, at least 40. However, all pandas rejected by their mothers in captivity, because they were the second twin or for unknown reasons, died. Since 1999, though, at least seven "second twin" baby pandas there have survived.

      "Hua Mei has greatly enhanced the exchange of information between us and China," says David Towne, president of the Washington-based Giant Panda Conservation Foundation. "We're learning from each other now. That simply did not exist before. There has been a great evolution of purpose of the American zoo, that of education and preservation. The message of Hua Mei is a great one to the public. It's not that we just have a baby, but that the baby offers a great deal of hope to advance the survivability of the species."

(889 words)

↑TOP