How do you throw a baby shower for a cub loved all over the world? Online, of course! Join the San Diego Zoo for its first online baby shower.
This experiment takes place November 5 at 11 a.m., Pacific Standard Time. Go to the Panda Cam page for an hour of panda-centric celebration. During this Facebook live-stream chat event, we'll have two panda keepers on hand to answer questions, receive well wishes, and test your panda knowledge. You must have a Facebook account to participate in the event via live chat, and your comments will be posted on your wall during the event. Comments will be monitored, so everyone on their best behavior. People making inappropriate remarks will be banned outright to keep the party friendly. Need an idea for a gift? Bai Yun and his royal cuteness are "registered" at the San Diego Zoo Wish List, where a list of special gifts are available in November.
Since our panda cub is a worldwide sensation, we’re trying this Facebook chat experiment to reach beyond San Diego and include more of the cub’s large audience of admirers. The San Diego Zoo currently has over 37,000 Facebook fans, so we are using this form of social media to create this social event. For anyone who would rather not attend the shower but still wants Panda Cam access, though, the regular Panda Cam page without the Facebook chat feature will also be available.
Of course you can’t have a baby shower without activities, and we have a few planned! We’ll open with well wishes for the panda keepers, Bai Yun, and the baby. Since people will be joining us from many places, we’ll ask where participants are from and see which guests are the farthest away. And we’ll take questions. We will have Kathy Hawk and Angie Fiore, panda keepers, at the keyboard to answer as many panda questions as we can. For the questions we can’t get to, we’ll try to answer them in upcoming panda blogs. We also plan to post the transcript of the entire event on the Web site.
For a little fun, we’ll also add a game. The cub will have his weekly exam that same morning of shower, so we will quiz participants about his measurements. We will also post the most up-to-date photos of the cute little guy on the Facebook page for everyone to enjoy.
While gifts are not required for this baby shower, if you do want to give Bai Yun and cub a present, the panda keepers have provided a list of things they would like to have for the baby on the Zoo’s monthly Wish List. Those items will be available for purchase from the Zoo starting November 2, starting in price at $14, and you can see the “registry” at www.sandiegozoo.org/wishlist.
Visiting the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park helps support our studies of wild giant panda populations. Our Applied Animal Ecology Division established its first conservation science program for wild pandas at the Foping Nature Reserve in China in 2006. The program utilizes radiotelemetry to research several important areas to futher our understanding of natural giant panda behavior and ecology. These include: mating strategies and genetic diversity of panda populations, denning ecology, habitat use and movement patterns, and human disturbance.
Which Panda Am I Seeing on Panda Cam?
Look for the "C" followed by a number in the lower left corner of the Panda Cam image. The number indicates the area of the Panda Station exhibit we are viewing (subject to change!):
- 1–3: Su Lin
- 4–7: Zhen Zhen
- 11, 15, 17, 27–29: Bai Yun
- 13, 21, and 25: Birthing Den
- 23; 30–32: Gao Gao
