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By APD writer Maverick
JAKARTA, Mar. 26 (APD) — The education kits installed in Indonesia's giant panda exhibit have attracted visitors, particularly children, who were astonished with the figure and anatomy of the China’s iconic animal.
The kits were installed in the hallway leading to the clean and neatly-designed panda enclosures.
Installation of the education kits in panda exhibit was done by Indonesia Safari Park (TSI) management, intended to deliver knowledge about panda for the visitors as the animal was apparently different from the others found in Indonesia, as well as animal collections in TSI.
The panda education kits comprised of information boards on panda dietary, their behavior in the wild and comparison with other animals in bear family.
A miniature set of panda research and hospital was also set there.
Culminating series of knowledge about panda displayed in the kits was a short movie that shows panda activities and behavior in the wild.
It was played in a theater for the visitors before they entered giant pandas' indoor and outdoor enclosures.
Ardita Widianti
Ardita Widianti, a veterinarian who supervises health of the giant pandas in the safari park said that the education kits apparently attracted visitors.
She added that they often actively asked for more detailed explanation from the attendants related to information showed on the boards.
She added that panda’s thumbs became the anatomy which they mostly curious about.
“Mostly they don't know that panda has small thumbs, allowing it to hold the tube-shaped bamboo tightly when they eat it. It makes panda capable to hold things like how humans do,” she told APD in the panda exhibit on Saturday.
The x-ray image of panda small thumbs were displayed in the research and hospital section, side by side with human’s.
Like other animals in bear family that have five sharp claws to tear apart meat in each of their hands, panda has an addition of small finger that functions like thumb in humans.
Panda’s small thumbs were located a bit far from its five claws, making it perfectly effective to hold the bamboo, Ardita said.
Tari Safitri, a teenager who studies in elementary school was surprised after received information about the panda small
thumbs.
The 10 year-old girl said that before getting the information in the panda exhibit, the things she knew about panda were their cuteness and its origin from China.
“Now I know that panda holds things like how we do it. It makes me love those adorable animals more and more," Tari who came with her family said.
The giant panda couple, Cai Tao for the male and Hu Chun for the female, arrived in Indonesia in September last year with a specially-arranged flight from China’s Chengdu province airport.
Their presence in Indonesia was resulted from 10-year Breeding Loan agreement with Chinese government, making Indonesia the 16th country to have the China-endemic animal.
Ardita said that the two pandas were in excellent health condition at present, no concerning situation has happened since the pandas arrival in the exhibit.
She said a particular team, including veterinarian and keepers, was formed by TSI to monitor panda’s health condition on daily basis.
“I checked up their health every 9.00 a.m. everyday. Besides checking every aspect, I also check the mouth to ensure the panda’s gum and everything in the section is not wounded by sharp bamboo fragments probably left between their teeth,” Ardita who was sent by TSI to undergo training programs in several China’s panda conservancy centers said.
She added that every panda health check procedure in Indonesian panda exhibit was following the instructions of researchers in China’s panda conservancy centers.
Besides conducting the routine health examination, Ardita added that her panda team is now tightly monitoring panda’s behaviors that may lead to estrus symptoms.
Panda pregnancy was highly expected by TSI so as to make it has first baby panda born in Indonesia.
“But panda’s mating season was kind of difficult to be predicted as the animal has a characteristic of brief estrus period. They don’t quite easy to make a baby,” the veterinarian graduated from Indonesia’s prominent campus of Gajah Mada University said.
Ardita said that she and part of the keepers would leave for China in the near future to undergo another training on panda breeding program.
TSI places the two giant pandas in a grand 50-hectare square Chinese-architecture exhibit, called Panda Castle, surrounded with bamboo plantations.
It is located in Cisarua, Bogor, West Java, around 71 kilometers south of Indonesia capital city Jakarta.
The panda exhibit was in a site
1,800 meters above sea surface,
suits with Panda habitat in China.
Besides the giant pandas, TSI management also places China's other exotic animal of red pandas in enclosure across the pandas’.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
