--- title: Animal Instincts date: 2015-09-14T14:30:46-04:00 author: University of Maryland canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/animal-instincts" section: Articles --- # Animal Instincts *September 14, 2015* — by [Karen Shih ’09](/authors/karen-shih-09) > Alum Champions Conservation Through Work at National Zoo *A woman holds a baby panda; a baby panda and mom play together — From left: Smith examines 2-month-old Bao Bao; 8-month-old Bao Bao plays with Mei Xiang in the outdoor enclosure.* *This story is from the Fall 2015 issue of Terp Magazine. Brandie Smith is now the Director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, overseeing the entire operation. As the pandas prepare to return to China in mid-November 2023, learn how she led reproductive efforts for years.* Each morning, before the curious foreign tourists, jaded local joggers or screaming school groups pour into the [Smithsonian’s National Zoo](http://nationalzoo.si.edu/), Bao Bao the panda starts her day by crunching soy protein biscuits and sucking on a bottle of honey water. It’s not just a leisurely breakfast. Zookeepers toss the little red biscuits to catch the attention of the 2-year-old as she ambles through a series of metal enclosures that take her from the indoor sleeping quarters to the outdoor habitat. She stuffs them into the corner of her mouth to chew like bamboo, stopping every so often so the keepers can weigh her, simulate drawing blood and have her practice lying down for future ultrasounds. Bao Bao isn’t just an adorable member of the zoo community. Like the [twin cubs born there Aug. 22](http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/PandaUpdates/instagram.cfm), she’s part of a global effort to save the endangered species. And the odds were stacked against her being here today. Just ask Brandie Smith Ph.D. ’10. A year before Bao Bao was born, her mother, Mei Xiang, suddenly abandoned a week-old cub, which turned out to have had unseen developmental issues. Smith, then the curator of giant pandas, had to make the devastating call to have the cub declared dead after veterinarians were unable to revive it. Even today, with a happy, healthy Bao Bao, Smith still wells up thinking about it. “It’s scary to work with these animals and have zero margin for error,” she says. When they’re born, “it’s exciting but terrifying because you know nothing can go wrong. Everything has to be 100 percent perfect all the time.” Now, as the associate director for animal care sciences, she’s responsible not only for the care and management of a wide variety of animals, from elephants and great apes to birds and reptiles, but also for research to ensure these species thrive in both captivity and their natural habitats. “These animals are ambassadors for their wild counterparts,” she says. “We have groups of the best scientists in the world who are working to save these species in the wild.” ### DREAMS VS. REALITY *mother tiger with baby tiger* ### ACHIEVING THE IMPOSSIBLE To work with pandas, your personality has to mirror a panda’s: calm, thoughtful and deliberate. But beneath the panda team’s mellow exterior hides the collective determination that brought Bao Bao into the world. Just 1,600 of these endangered animals are left in the wild because of hunting and deforestation—pandas need to eat 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo each day—so studying the 300 or so in captivity is important for maintaining and growing the population. Even with human support, however, pandas reproduce slowly: Females are sexually mature from around 4 to 20 years old, but they usually only have one cub at a time, and there’s at least a two-year gap between each cub (they must be weaned first). At the National Zoo, the panda team tried for years to get Mei Xiang pregnant after she weaned Tai Shan, her first cub, in 2006. He was sent to China in 2010 (as part of the National Zoo’s panda loan agreement), and two years later, Mei Xiang finally gave birth—but that cub died at just a week old. By 2013, “everyone in the zoo, everyone in China had given up,” says Smith. She had jumped at the opportunity to work at the National Zoo in 2008, which put her in charge of all mammal curators. The panda curator soon retired, thrusting her into the day-to-day operations of the panda house on top of her regular duties. She oversaw the 10-person team that not only cares for the pandas, hauling hundreds of pounds of bamboo daily and introducing enrichment materials like mulch and hay, but also works to get Mei Xiang pregnant. “Statistically, Mei Xiang had less than a 5 percent chance of having a cub, given her age \[15\] and the interbirth interval,” Smith says. Panda pregnancy is a tricky thing. For one, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, the zoo’s male panda, have never been able to produce a cub the natural way (it’s tough with only a two-day window each year to try), so artificial insemination is always necessary with this pair. After that, the pregnancy isn’t easy, either. “The trouble with pandas is that there are two parts to their gestation,” explains panda keeper Marty Dearie ’97. A fertilized egg can float around the uterus for three to four months before implanting, which then starts the 40- to 50-day gestation period. Female pandas also experience pseudo pregnancies, during which they go through hormonal changes, build nests, eat and drink less and become more sedentary. None of Mei Xiang’s pregnancies ever showed up on the ultrasound, so “we pretty much know it’s a pregnancy when she has the cub,” Smith says. *tiny baby panda, eyes closed, held in blue-gloved human hands* ### SAVING SPECIES Of course, Bao Bao isn’t the only baby Smith and her zoo colleagues have brought into the world. On any given day, you can see lion cubs pouncing on each other or a sloth bear cub wrestle his dad. “If you see a pair of animals \[at the zoo\], someone has made a scientific decision that they should be together,” says Jon Ballou Ph.D. ’95, senior research scientist at the National Zoo and one of Smith’s doctoral advisers. *panda facts: about 1,600 pandas live in the wild and another 300 live in zoos or breeding centers; panda cubs are 1/900th the size of their mothers when they are born; Bao Bao will grow to be about 220 pounds (male pandas are bigger, about 250 pounds)* ### THE FUTURE TAKES FLIGHT As Bao Bao contentedly gnaws on bamboo in front of a crowd of cooing fans, she has no idea her time as panda poobah is coming to an end. Members of the panda team traveled to China this spring to get sperm from a different male—Tian Tian has many siblings, so he isn’t particularly valuable genetically—and they inseminated Mei Xiang with both of their sperm in late April. “Every other year, people didn’t expect her to get pregnant,” Smith says. “It was almost like buying a lottery ticket. Now they think, ‘You’re going to give us twins this year, right?’” The public's optimism was rewarded: Just a day before Bao Bao's second birthday, Mei Xiang gave birth to two cubs. The smaller one died four days later, despite the panda team's round-the-clock efforts. The surviving cub is male, and genetic testing determined he is Tian Tian's sons. Since Smith’s promotion earlier this year, the day-to-day efforts at the panda house are out of her hands. She’s taking on larger projects, like the multiyear transformation of the elephant habitat, for which she negotiated the acquisition of four Asian elephants to increase the herd to seven. Now she’s working to overhaul the Bird House to create the first major exhibit about North American migratory birds in an American zoo. “There are amazing, spectacular birds in our back yards,” she says. “How do we make this big story accessible to the people who come here to the zoo? How can they help us conserve them?” The National Zoo has more opportunities than most to reach the public, since admission is free for its more than 2 million annual visitors. That accessibility makes her long hours—she usually arrives by 7 a.m. and doesn’t leave until 6 p.m. and is on call during evenings and weekends—all worth it. “I love it because anyone from any walk of life can come through our gates,” Smith says. “It’s such a magical thing when you see these animals and start to appreciate them.” **TERP** **Issue:** [Fall 2015](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/fall-2015) **Types:** [Features](https://terp.umd.edu/category/features) **Tags:** [Discover New Knowledge](https://terp.umd.edu/tags/discover-new-knowledge)