Panda Pandemic, the next reality TV show

Move over Kardashians panda live births are about to take your spot on the reality TV show circuit. Or are they?

It seems that pandas may be much smarter than we human’s ever expected. We are so thrilled at the prospect of panda bears giving birth in captivity that it seems we have gone to the extreme in taking care of the prospective moms. Where, left on their own in the wilds, the pandas may have just wandered around in the bamboo eating shoots and sweating in the sweltering heat, we have provided them with the best of climate control.

According to a story that appeared in CNN online, Ai Hin, a six year old panda living in the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, in China, sort of figured out that the state would pay for special accommodations for her if she were preggers. So, Ai Hin sort of started exhibiting signs of an impending pregnancy.

The keepers at Chengdu were ecstatic. Plans were put in place, and they were already promoting their reality show of the giant panda giving birth to her cubs. And they knew they had to take good care of their star performer, Ai Hin. She also knew they would be taking good care of her, although exactly why may have been beyond her ability to realize. She obviously was aware that getting pregnant or at least seeming to be pregnant was the way to go.

Call her the welfare panda. Ai Hin started to exhibit signs of being pregnant. And, she did a good enough job of it to fool her handlers. On the handlers’ behalf, Ai Hin did an excellent job of following them by showing signs of pregnancy, including:  a change in appetite, moving less, and an increase in progesterone in July, according to Xinhua. Pperhaps, however, her handlers got caught up in their own hype and longed to be part of the reality show market.

Be that as it may, they followed the protocol for a pregnant panda. The protocol includes a private, climate controlled room, and providing more and better quality food. That’s the right thing to do with a pregnant mother, right? Well, it’s not so unusual, according to this quote from the CNN story:

"After showing prenatal signs, the 'mothers-to-be' are moved into single rooms with air conditioning and around-the-clock care," Wu Kongju, an expert at the Chengdu base, said. "They also receive more buns, fruits and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life."

Maybe there is good cause for the keepers to be excited. Apparently, giant pandas are only fertile three days each year. Pandas are also notoriously reluctant to breed in captivity. That gives the males a very small window at best.

On top of that, the baby pandas have a 33 percent mortality rate when born in captivity. So it may not be a bad idea to baby the mothers who are about to have babies of their own.

Pandas have long been a favorite of mine. I suppose I owe my love for Pandas to Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, a pair of pandas that were given to the US back in the ‘70s.

I think I actually saw them when I was in Washington for my senior class trip. Still, it’s a big deal when a panda bear is giving birth in captivity. The next suspected pregnancy is Tian Tian, who lives in the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland. But the keepers were careful to note that there are no guarantees. The keepers were quick to note their inability to be certain about panda pregnancies, this time.

"It is very likely that we will not know 100% if Tian Tian is pregnant until she gives birth," Iain Valentine, director of giant pandas for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said earlier this month.