A panda keeper at work
Laurie Perry:
'Best job there is'
By Porter Anderson
CNN.com/career Editor
(CNN) -- "Sometimes it can be a very physically demanding job. The cleaning, of course. And cutting bamboo. Large quantities of it. Several hundred pounds of it each week."
As much as 40 or more pounds of bamboo per day, give or take a few sweet potatoes and carrots. Per bear. Now lumbering out of a month's quarantine.
The pandas will see you now.
When the Smithsonian National Zoology Park's Panda House opens to the public on Wednesday, you can bet visitors will find these creatures busy munching out on what Laurie Perry has just chopped up for them. What's more, tending them this cold winter means being outside for long periods without the benefit of the beasts' trademark furs.
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But Perry isn't complaining. She's one of just three keepers who are caring for Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, the newly arrived Chinese giant pandas.
"I think I have the best job there is," Perry says. "They eat and sleep and play around and make a mess."
And now, they're about to get some entertainment, as the humans start trooping through to see them. On Wednesday at 10 a.m. EST, there'll be comments from Li Zhaoxing, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, as well as from Chen Jianwei from China's conservation department and Chen Runsheng of the China Wildlife Conservation Association. They'll be met by the zoo's Lucy Spelman, the Smithsonian's Lawrence Small and Washington's mayor, Anthony Williams.
Then at 11 a.m., the real stars of the show are scheduled to make absolutely no comment whatever, as the doors open to the public.
"But they do have some vocalizations," Perry says. "They have a 'chirp,' we call it, a high-pitched squeaking noise when they play. And if they get upset, they make a little honking noise. We're used to it but it's a strange sound."
 Room to grow
"Mei," the 2-year-old female whose full name (may-SHONG) means "beautiful fragrance," currently weighs about 140 pounds, Perry says. "Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN) weighs about 210 and he's 3 years old." His name means "more and more." Pretty fitting: They each can get as heavy as 220 pounds and should reach sexual maturity within three or four years.
Both were bred at the Wolong nature preserve in Sichuan Province and they're on a 10-year loan from the Chinese government. And considering they arrived December 6 on a special FedEx flight to Dulles National Airport, the pandas have had a much more direct route to their newly renovated habitat than Perry has.
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Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived December 6 at Dulles National Airport on a jet provided by one of their exhibit's corporate sponsors, FedEx
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"When I was young, I wanted to be a marine biologist," she says. "That's where I was headed."
Perry, 29, is from Annapolis, Maryland, and had started school at Salisbury State University before transferring to the University of Maryland.
"Somewhere along the line, I saw a special on Jane Goodall, working with chimps. I thought it might be interesting to work with primates. So I came to the zoo and found out you can volunteer here.
"I got into the primate unit as a keeper-aide -- you come in every week and work along with the keepers. You do a lot of the same job but you can't have the same proximity to the animals that the keepers have. I was a volunteer starting in '92 and was hired in '94 as an animal keeper."
"Keeper" and "animal caretaker" are the going terms in her work, Perry says. The term "handler" more frequently refers to someone who trains and directs animals for show business or other purposes.
Perry says the volunteer route is important "because a lot of people think we just sit around and play with the animals all day. Not the case. There's really a lot of hard work involved. And in working with any animals, you have to know how they react to people and how close they can get."
At the National Zoo, the pandas are housed and cared for as part of the primates division. Lisa Stevens, a curator for mammals, oversees the panda exhibit and Perry works with two other keepers, Dianne Murnane and Brenda Morgan who traveled to Wolong to pick up the animals last month.
A large part of Perry's preparation for Mei Xiang and Tian Tian's arrival was her work with one of the two previous panda tenants at the zoo. She cared for Hsing Hsing until his death in 1999 -- his companion Ling Ling had died in 1992 before Perry started her work with the primates unit.
So for the last year or so, Perry has focused on gorillas. "I think they're incredible," she says -- but her affection clearly now lies with the bears she has tended since early December.
 Getting to know you
Policy and good judgment dictate that keepers not approach the animals they work with.
"If they want the attention, that's OK. It's really up to them, if they come up to us and appear to want to be with us. Hsing Hsing would sometimes come up and scratch on the mesh and want to be scratched by us. And we really knew when he wanted attention. And the same with the apes. They'll come over and sit next to you and initiate content.
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Laurie Perry looks in on one of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang's three enclosed areas
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"So it's fine if they initiate. Otherwise, if they don't want to be messed with, then we just leave them alone.
"These two pandas are terrific. They're both really smart. Tian, our male, tends to look at us as food machines. He knows we provide the food. So whenever he sees us, he basically wants to know what kind of food we have.
"Mei, the female, is something like that, too, to some extent, but she's also interested in coming up to watch what we're doing, she's very smart. Maybe if we're cleaning and they're out in the yard, they'll come up and see what we're doing. They'll come up if we're hosing, to see the water. Sometimes they just sit down and watch us."
Perry says more of the primate division's keepers likely will be trained to work with Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, as the panda exhibit becomes a daily visiting area for the public.
"We're here from 7 in the morning to about 5:30. In the summer, when they can stay out later, it'll probably be until about 6:30."
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BAMBOO, BAMBOO, BAMBOO
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Normally, she says, the animals aren't tended around the clock. "They pretty much just sleep at night, it's not very interesting." The only time staff works 24 hours is when there's an illness in the exhibit or a pregnancy watch.
"This is a job I actually get up in the morning looking forward to going to," Perry says, aware that she's got something many people can't claim.
The difficult part, though, is emotional. "It can be very hard when animals get sick and die. Right now, this is great because Mei and Tian are young. I had a few really good years with Hsing. He was very healthy up until the end."
 Hanging out with pandas
Perry is curious to see how the arrival of tourists might affect her two wards. "That's something we're going to be finding out. We've gotten spoiled because it's been nice and quiet, nobody but us and the animals up here. Now, it's going to be a lot of logistical things. Big crowds, all these volunteers stationed around to talk to the people, a lot of coordination."
She notes an irony in modern zoo conservation efforts for these highly endangered animals, only about 1,000 of which remain in the mountainous forests of central China. The National's Panda House is designed with murals of forested terrain and plenty of rocks; even air-conditioned little caves to cool off in during the summer. And yet these pandas have been raised in a breeding center, not in the wide-open natural habitat the exhibit approximates.
In addition to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian in Washington, the United States has three pandas currently in San Diego and two in Atlanta.
Perry and her fellow keepers will at times speak to the crowds, to fill them in on behavior they're seeing in Mei and Tian.
"Mei likes to 'share' Tian's food. She takes it from him sometimes. If he's eating a piece of bamboo, she'll climb up over him and eat from the top of it.
"He knows it and accepts it. She might try to grab a carrot out of his hand and he'll move it away. But with the bamboo, he'll just let her eat it. He's very laid-back."
Pandas can become agitated if frightened, Perry says, but the renovations of the zoo's exhibit have probably helped in that regard to prepare the animals to be around the sounds of visitors. "Especially since ours are young, noises aren't as scary. Hsing never liked loud noises. But all this construction has gone on and now they're setting up outside for the crowds and Mei and Tian don't seem to be easily frightened.
The bears had a pre-opening visit on Saturday from U.S. President Bill Clinton, his daughter Chelsea and his nephews. "And so far they like to hang out in the front of the exhibit, which is really nice," Perry says.
Perry says it's hard to know whether the bears differentiate between keepers. "And it must have been odd at first to them because we don't speak Chinese. But the other day, I needed them to come inside so I could go into the yard and put some food out. We do this several times a day. So I called them in and they came. That was great. They know my voice."
The pandas at the National have two yards and three enclosed areas. They didn't go out during a recent snowfall in Washington, Perry says, but pandas do like snow. Misters and foggers are in place to keep them cool in the summertime heat.
For the most part, Mei and Tian stay together, Perry says. "When Ling and Hsing were brought here, they weren't kept together as much. Nowadays, we keep them together while they're young, hoping that will help them stay together when they're of mating age. And these two really seem to like each other."
There's a lot of mutual affection going on, in fact. Perry, who has a cat and dog at home, says the next career step for her normally would be to a curator's position.
"But the curators don't get the hands-on experience that we do. They do a lot of meetings. Their day isn't based around the animals like mine is.
"I think I'd rather stay a keeper."
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