Calgary keeper ‘so excited’ to care for beloved pandas
When Calgary Zoo officials scoured the world looking for an experienced panda keeper, they would never have expected to find one in their own backyard.
Yet Cissy Kou was exactly what the zoo hoped to find — someone with extensive experience looking after pandas. And the 41-year-old keeper was already living in Calgary, having returned from Hong Kong to the city where she’d attended high school and university.
She’d returned to Calgary because of her mom’s health, never expecting to resume her career looking after the rare species she’d first fallen in love with years earlier on the other side of the world.
Kou was hired as lead keeper by the zoo last summer in anticipation of the arrival of the four pandas — adults Da Mao and Er Shun, and cubs Jia Panpan (Canadian Hope) and Jia Yueyue (Canadian Joy) — for the animals’ much-anticipated scheduled five-year stay in Calgary.
On Friday, the four bears will finally arrive and soon be in her charge. The bears will be flown from Toronto, where they have been a major hit since the adults arrived from China in the spring of 2013, with the cubs born on Canadian soil following artificial insemination two years later.
Kou, like everyone else at the zoo, is eagerly anticipating that moment.
“I am so excited. I did meet the pandas in Toronto when I went for a week to do some training with them. Each of them has a different personality and the young ones are so very cute,” said Kou.
The keeper doubts the bears will remember her from that brief interaction, but once she begins looking after them in Calgary that bond will be established quickly.
“In Toronto I fed them and did a lot of training with them but I don’t think they will remember that. The Toronto keeper will be here with us for the first week, so there is a transition time as I start feeding them and getting close to them,” said Kou.
“They get to know people through smell and sound, so when calling them by their names they get to recognize that voice. They react differently to people they know. They will come a lot quicker if called by a voice they recognize” she added.
Kou worked with pandas at Ocean Park in Hong Kong after spending many years in Calgary, and was first employed at the park as a bird trainer.
“At the time, they had only two pandas and they wanted a breeding program, so they brought in two younger bears and that’s when I started working with them. It just happened and I fell in love,” said Kou.
As head keeper for the pandas she will closely monitor the feeding and digestive habits of the four animals — they consume 40 kilograms of bamboo daily and nine varieties will be brought in regularly from China to feed the extremely picky eaters.
She’ll also monitor the health of the female panda, Er Shun, particularly closely when the animal approaches the extremely tight window in which pregnancy is possible. Pandas can only conceive during a three-day period each year.
The two cubs will be in Calgary for about 18 months before they will be taken to China.
At that point, the zoo hopes to successfully breed Er Shun again, which would provide a huge boost to attendance during the latter part of the five-year stay.
In the first year alone, the zoo is planning on 1.6-million people visiting the newly constructed $14-million Panda Passage exhibit that will be home to the bears once they are cleared from quarantine.
Zoo spokeswoman Trish ExtonParder said the public will not be able to see the bears for more than a month while they are quarantined, with the official unveiling of the animals in the new exhibit area set for May 7.
The zoo is also keeping the time of the exact arrival of the pandas quiet so no crowds gather, which could spook the animals.
“We want to ensure the stress levels are kept to a minimum so the pandas will have lots of time to settle when they get here,” she said.
This will be first time the zoo has had pandas since the 1988 Winter Olympics, when two of the animals were here for seven months.
Exton-Parder remembers it well.
“It was a remarkable time. I can’t wait to see them again this time. The whole zoo, from staff through volunteers to people working the concessions were so excited. We are all champing at the bit. Of course, we won’t be able to see them either while they are in quarantine, so we’ll have to be a little patient just like the rest of Calgary,” she added.
The pandas are part of the Global Giant Panda Conservation Breeding Program and were loaned to Canada for 10 years by China.
The worldwide program has helped move the pandas off the most endangered list.
They react differently to people they know. They will come a lot quicker if called by a voice they recognize.