logo

Welcome


AboutZoos, Since 2008





201202May20:05

Wash­ing­ton National Zoo’s female Panda, receives arti­fi­cial insemination

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 02 May 2012 | mod­i­fied 04 Decem­ber 2012
Archived

Giant panda breed­ing sea­son in Wash­ing­ton began this year when Mei Xiang, went into estrus over the week­end of April 2829, 2012.

Li Desh­eng from the China Con­ser­va­tion and Research Cen­ter for the Giant Panda in Wolong, and National Zoo sci­en­tists and vet­eri­nar­i­ans per­formed an arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion Sun­day night after they deter­mined no com­pe­tent nat­ural breed­ing had occurred between Mei Xiang and male giant panda, Tian Tian. Li and the National Zoo’s panda team per­formed a sec­ond arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion on April 30, 2012.

The National Zoo’s twit­ter feed (@NationalZoo) had even live updates of the pro­ce­dure with the hash­tag #pandaAI.

The two pan­das have suc­cess­fully bred before — Mei Xiang gave birth to male cub Tai Shan in 2005 — but they aren’t so good at get­ting it on them­selves. Tai Shan was con­ceived via arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion as well, and now resides in China.

Panda Cub

Giant pan­das, native to south­east­ern China, north­ern Myan­mar, and north­ern Viet­nam, are now endan­gered; only 1,600 pan­das are left in the wild. Cap­tive breed­ing is a chief part of sci­en­tists’ efforts to study and con­serve the species.

Baby pan­das are heart-​meltingly cute, which is one of the rea­sons con­ser­va­tion efforts are in place for this species (more infor­ma­tion here). Fur­ther­more they present a big draw for any zoo. The National Zoo had to send Tai Shan back to China in 2010, because all pan­das, regard­less of where they are born, offi­cially belong to China under inter­na­tional law. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian are on loan to the United States until 2015.

Sci­en­tists deter­mined that semen col­lected from Tian Tian while he was under gen­eral anes­the­sia Sun­day night was not high enough qual­ity to use for an arti­fi­cial insem­i­na­tion. There­fore, on Sun­day, April 29, 2012, Mei Xiang while under gen­eral anaes­the­sia was insem­i­nated with thawed semen col­lected in 2005 from Tian Tian. Zoo staff will con­tinue to mon­i­tor Mei Xiang’s hor­mone lev­els in the com­ing months and con­duct ultra­sounds to see if she is pregnant.

The Zoo received approval for its breed­ing plans from the China Wildlife and Con­ser­va­tion Asso­ci­a­tion and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, which mon­i­tors giant panda research pro­grams in the United States. Desh­eng came to assist the National Zoo panda team in accor­dance with the Giant Panda Coop­er­a­tive Research and Breed­ing Agree­ment through 2015.

The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Smith­son­ian National Zoo­log­i­cal Park and Huff­in­g­ton Post Green. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.

(Source: web­site National Zoo, 30.04.2012; Huff Post Green, 30.04.2012)

UN Biodiversity decade
WWF Stop Wildlife Crime
Fight for Flight campaign
End Ivory-funded Terrorism
Support Rewilding Europe
NASA State of Flux

Goal: 7000 tigers in the wild

Tiger range countries map

Tiger map” (CC BY 2.5) by Sander­son et al., 2006.

about zoos and their mis­sion regard­ing breed­ing endan­gered species, nature con­ser­va­tion, bio­di­ver­sity and edu­ca­tion, which of course relates to the evo­lu­tion of species.
Fol­low me on: