By Rachel Kurzius and Rachel Sadon
There’s a reason people hate the media—we got to see baby panda Bei Bei a full month before the rest of you suckers, and we didn’t even have to win a contest to do it.
The zoo presented Bei Bei in the arms of caretaker Juan Rodriguez. He walked slowly up and down the enclosure to give everyone a turn to snap some photos of the furball, who now properly resembles a panda. Bei Bei spent most of his time in the spotlight in fetal position.
It’s all part of the process of getting him ready for his big debut next month, says Dr. Brandie Smith, associate director of animal care at Smithsonian’s National Zoo. When the masses come, Bei Bei will have to be ready for all of the attention sure to come his way.
The young panda already has developed quite the personality, Smith says, though we didn’t see much of it. “He’s rough and tumble. He’s a boisterous little boy. He’s so different from [his older sister] Bao Bao. Sometimes he likes to show us [caretakers] how tough he is by lunging at us.”
Despite his badass attitude, though, Bei Bei still relies on his mom Mei Xiang for all of his nourishment. He won’t be weaned off until he’s about a year-and-a-half old. Mei Xiang “takes more ‘me’ time,” than she did when Bei Bei was born in late August, Smith says.
Mei Xiang still spends a lot of time playing with her son, though. “When people watch on the panda cam, they often comment on how bear play is rough,” says Smith. “It’s supposed to be. She’s preparing him for life in the wild.” Bei Bei took his first steps in November.
Smith ended her tenure as the curator of the Panda House around seven months ago for her new gig looking over all the zoo’s animals, though the Panda House “always feels like home.” She says her jobs makes her “the weird zoo mom. When I take my kids to school events, parents always think I can only talk about the animals. I can talk about other things, too.”
But DCist didn’t test her non-panda knowledge, instead asking why the zoo bothers to breed creatures that often seem indifferent to reproduction. The Onion famously referred to Mei Xiang as a “single, unemployed mother leeching off the government.”
“Pandas were wildly successful for hundreds of thousands of years. They’re going extinct because humans destroyed their habitat,” says Smith. “Pandas are an opportunity to remind us that we drove these animals to the brink of extinction, and it’s our responsibility to bring them back.”
The National Zoo recently signed another a five-year agreement with the China Wildlife and Conservation Association to keep pandas at the zoo until the end of 2020. All cubs born here will have to return to China when they turn four.
But doesn’t it feel like just yesterday when we were all busy fawning over Bao Bao? The now two-year-old was largely left to herself in an outdoor enclosure this morning as the media cameras trained their attention on her cuddlier brother. She didn’t seem to mind.
As for Bei Bei, he largely slept through his big media debut—tucked into the rocks, and mostly shielded from the glare. But he’ll soon have to get used to his adoring public. Zoo members will get a chance to meet him starting on January 8, and the general public will get their turn on January 16. If you need a baby animal fix before then, you can view porcupette Charlotte.
Get ready to say hey Bei Bei.
