00:00The greatest conservation threat to giant pandas is habitat loss, and anytime you have a situation where habitat encroachment by humans is a threat to a wildlife population, we need to have an understanding also of how human noise and activities might disturb animals.
00:18So one focus of our research program is to better understand how human disturbance and noise might impact giant pandas, both in the wild and here at the zoo.
00:27So we have been embarking on this hearing study for the past two years and we've gotten some fantastic data.
00:33As the keeper I found it quite challenging because what we have to do as our part in this is we have to train the pandas to go into a soundproof booth with us in the booth with the pandas
00:46and then basically have to train them to respond to tones and sounds and put their nose to a target.
00:53After they put their nose to a target, then we use a clicker as a bridge, a reward.
00:58The noise tells the panda that they have done the behavior correctly and then a food reward will follow afterwards.
01:07But Su Lin, she really gets into it.
01:10And Jen Jen, I had a feeling she was going to be a star.
01:16That was really exciting for us because she's definitely the youngest bear to have ever participated in a study such as that.
01:23So we not only got a good sense of what a very young bear could hear, we also learned that young pandas are very smart and they're able to participate in a study that's quite challenging and requires them to really think about what they're doing and interact with their keepers on a really detailed level.
01:39Now one of the things as the trainer that we do is that I do control when the computer sends us a tone.
01:46The trick is to this whole thing is that I never know when a tone is going to be played.
01:51Sometimes a tone may be played, sometimes a tone may not be played.
01:55So the panda has to get rewarded for either sitting and not reacting to a tone or reacting to a tone when a tone is played.
02:04But it gets even harder than that.
02:07The tones will be played out of our human hearing range.
02:11A lot of people ask me, well, how do you know that the panda has responded to the tone properly?
02:17Well, there's a little light dash below my feet that will flash that will let me know that a tone has been played.
02:22And what we do is we play tones that we know the loudness of, we know the frequency or pitch of those tones.
02:30These are measured sounds that we play to them.
02:33And they tell us basically whether they've heard it or not.
02:36In the doctor's office you might raise a finger to tell the doctor that you heard the tone.
02:41What we ask the pandas to do is put their nose on a target.
02:44And it's a very clear and unambiguous move that they make.
02:48And if they do it correctly, they get a treat.
02:50And this way we can really sequentially present tones at progressively lower and lower loudness.
02:58And when we get to the point where they can't hear that tone anymore, that's when we know we've hit their threshold.
03:04Su Lin was a really important panda for us in terms of the scientific research.
03:08She's the first giant panda for which we have comprehensive hearing data on.
03:13We've learned that pandas actually have quite sensitive hearing at some frequencies that are higher than we expected.
03:19And so we were really, really excited to have the time with her and to get that data.
03:24Okay, I've got a couple of pieces of food left.
03:26So Su Lin and Zhen Zhen just made their trip to China.
03:29And now they're safely at the Wolong Panda Conservation Center.
03:33And we were, of course, very sad to see them go.
03:36But we're really excited about what their future holds.
Sé la primera persona en añadir un comentario