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February 2007
Zoo Atlanta staying in Grant Park
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Zoo Atlanta will remain in Grant Park and not move to the old fairgrounds at Lakewood, the zoo’s board chairman said today.
Instead, the zoo will redesign its current site and possibly add a few more acres from parking lots and a tract of city-owned land adjacent to the zoo, said Mickey Brown, who oversees the board.
Board members on Tuesday agreed to keep the zoo at Grant Park, its home since 1889.
Redesigning the zoo could cost as much as $175 million, Brown estimated.
Zoo officials, consultants and others had considered moving to Lakewood, south of downtown, so that the zoo could expand. After reviewing the site, they decided it wouldn’t be worth the money, Brown said.
Some also felt an attachment to the current site, where generations of people have come to gaze at gorillas, elephants and other creatures.
“I tried to keep my personal feelings to myself, but I told people from Day 1, If there’s any way we can keep the zoo at Grant Park, that what we ought to do,” Brown said.
The zoo has scheduled a press conference later today.
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Timed tickets for Mei Lan go on sale
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Your chance to see Mei Lan, Zoo Atlanta’s giant panda cub, just got easier and, in some cases, more expensive. Although Mei Lan has been on view since Jan. 12, during “preview” days, the zoo will begin selling timed tickets Friday that all but guarantee holders a view of the cub in her habitat.
Q: When can I get a ticket?
A. They are available online, beginning at 8 a.m. Friday (www.zooatlanta.org). The zoo will have them at the gate starting at 9:30 a.m.
Q. What do they cost?
A. The online tickets are $2.50 for members, $5 for nonmembers (in addition to regular admission). But they are free at the gate.
Q. So why pay extra for online tickets?
A. The online tickets are time-specific. You are guaranteed a time to visit Mei Lan and her parents if you order online. If they sell out online, people wanting one at the gate are out of luck.
Q. When can you see Mei Lan?
A. Zoo members can come to the gate from 9 a.m.-9:30 a.m. and get in before anyone else, for free. Timed visits for the public start at 9:30 a.m., with the last scheduled visits commencing at 11:45 a.m. As Mei Lan gets older, she’ll spend more time outside, and the zoo will offer more timed tickets. For now, the zoo is offering tickets only in the morning, when the baby, who now weighs 22 pounds, is outside with her mom, Lun Lun.
Q, How much time for viewing per ticket?
A. Fifteen minutes.
Q. How many people can visit during each 15-minute period?
A. The zoo is allowing 150 people into the panda area at a time. There, the people will be divided into groups of 50. Each 50-person group will be allowed into the covered area to gaze at the cub, while the remaining 100 check out Yang Yang, the father, who is segregated from Lun Lun and Mei Lan. They’ll also learn about the zoo’s research into pandas and worldwide conservation efforts to preserve these creatures.
Q. How will the zoo use the extra money from online ticket sales?
A. The cash will be used for wild-panda conservation programs.
Q. Can I see the adult pandas in the afternoon, after Mei Lan’s formal visiting hours are ended?
A. Sure. But Mei Lan, like any beauty, may decide she needs her rest.
Q. Will she have a baby brother or sister in the future?
A. Lun Lun and Yang Yang were unavailable for comment.
Q. How can I get tickets?
A. Log on to www.zooatlanta.org to order timed tickets. The site also contains information about the tickets. Or you can call 404-624-9453 (WILD).
Q. Where is the zoo?
A. It’s where the wild things are, Atlanta’s Grant Park: 800 Cherokee Ave. SE, Atlanta.
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Mei Lan, rocket girl?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She rolls. She rollicks. She runs. Mei Lan can do just about anything these days. Except sit still. That’s just asking too much of Zoo Atlanta’s 5-month-old baby giant panda.
Zoo officials conducted their weekly checkup on their furry dynamo Thursday morning. Mei Lan was as docile as a bag of kittens. Dr. Maria Crane, the zoo’s chief veterinarian, reached for her measuring tape to get the youngster’s vitals — length, girth, paw size, that sort of stuff. She tried once. Mei Lan rolled over. She tried again. Mei Lan bounded to a corner. Crane tried a third time. The cub skittered off in another direction. Crane gave up, and instead issued a scientific observation: “She’s grown.” Last week, Crane estimated the cub was 32 inches long.
What else do they know?
• Mei Lan now weighs 21 pounds, gaining another pound in the past seven days.
• She’s fast. When Crane finished her exam, she left the cub in the corner of her sleeping area and headed for the door. Mei Lan scooted past her, arriving at the door first.
• She’s strong — and headstrong, too. When Crane took the cub’s temperature with a rectal thermometer, the doctor added another fact to the zoo’s growing volume of Mei Lan findings: “She really didn’t like that.”
• The cub is as healthy as her mom, Lun Lun, and dad, Yang Yang. She follows Lun Lun about like a fat little shadow. She climbs logs and rolls in buckets. She swats and gnaws on her toys. She ripples with energy and curiosity.
• She’s spending more time outside every day. As soon as zoo officials can reasonably expect her to remain outdoors for extended periods, they’ll schedule a formal debut for Mei Lan, said Susan Elliott, Zoo Atlanta’s spokesperson. The zoo also will sell timed tickets for people to see the cub and her parents when Mei Lan has her coming-out in Atlanta society, Elliott said.
“We’re so excited with her,” Elliott said. “Everyone is just thrilled with her progress.”
To keep track of her pending debut, check outwww.zooatlanta.org
The steady and ready teddy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She’s growing steadily, playing readily, this little bear that so resembles a teddy.
That’s Mei Lan, of course, Zoo Atlanta’s baby giant panda, who underwent her weekly checkup Thursday. She’s in the pink.
That’s the color of her nose, resting like a sweetheart rose between two bright eyes. Dr. Maria Crane, the zoo’s senior veterinarian, measured the panda’s sniffer during the cub’s weekly checkup Thursday morning.
“Overall, she’s growing very well,” said Crane, who has been examining the cub regularly since her birth Sept. 6 to Lun Lun. “She’s very playful, too.”
So playful that Crane had trouble, again, getting the cub’s vitals. After several tries, Crane came up with the following results:
• Weight: 20 pounds. Mei Lan’s put on another pound since last week.
• Length: 32 inches, more or less. This measurement has varied in recent checkups, and it’s wiggly Mei Lan’s fault. Last week, Crane estimated she was 34 inches long.
• Girth: slightly more than 19 inches.
• Neck girth: 14 inches.
• Teeth? Crane didn’t count, but said they look good.
The true measure of her growth, though, cannot be calculated with tape or scale, said Crane. “She’s more aware of her surroundings,” Crane said. “She’s active — very, very active.”
Mei Lan has begun climbing the wooden structures in the compound where she lolls in the sun. She chews on toys and rolls about like something fired from a cannon.
Oh, and that rosy little nose? It’s 2 inches across.
Click here to see the latest photo gallery of Mei Lan.
What’s in a name? Funny you should ask
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You could say that Mei Lan, Zoo Atlanta’s baby panda cub, is one in a million. You’d be wrong, too.
Technically, the tiny growler growing under her mama’s protective gaze is two in a million. Another panda, a bruiser from Chicago, had the name Mei Lan first.
“I felt like the girl who comes to the party and sees another girl there wearing the same dress” when he discovered the cub had a used name, said Dennis Kelly, Zoo Atlanta’s president and executive director.
In 1938, a young panda with big ears, a short fuse and sharp teeth debuted at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago’s suburbs. His name — it was a he, though zoo officials thought otherwise — was Mei Lan. Translated loosely, the name meant “lovely flower.” (Zoo Atlanta officials say their Mei Lan’s name means something else. More on that in a bit.)
History shows that never has a panda been so poorly named. The first Mei Lan was more livid than lovely, more Venus Flytrap than flower.
“He was always snapping at people,” said former Brookfield Zoo employee Ralph Small.
Small, 85, would know. In 1946, Small, while working as a relief keeper at the panda exhibit, looked away from Mei Lan at just the wrong time. The panda shoved a sneaky snout through his barred cage and bit off Small’s right hand. “He left scars all up my arm, too,” said Small.
Was he left-handed when Mei Lan bit him? “Well,” said Small, “I am now.”
Some folks would have damned pandas for all time, but not Small. He stayed at the zoo, retiring in 1983 to Arizona. Mei Lan remained at Brookfield until he died in 1953. To the end, the bear with the pretty name remained as mean as a Chicago winter. When he died, his name passed into history — but not forever.
In December, Zoo Atlanta unveiled the name of its baby giant panda in a ceremony marking the 100th day of the cub’s Sept. 6 birth. Online voters from around the world had chosen one name from among 10 candidates — Mei Lan.
The name, Kelly said amid cheers and music, meant “Atlanta Beauty.”
How can one name have two translations? Yinping Yu, the zoo’s conservation biologist and a native of China, traces the discrepancy to the passage of time. As more Westerners have visited China, and vice-versa, words that meant one thing have come to signify new meanings, he said.
Translated: “Lan” has become synonymous with Atlanta. “Mei” still means “beauty.”
OK, but what about that name? That other panda just about wore it out, didn’t he?
Kelly, who learned about the first Mei Lan not long after the naming ceremony, says no. The moniker, like the cub, has plenty of life in it, he said.
“She is gorgeous,” Kelly said. “She is, in my heart, and in the rest of Atlanta’s, what her name implies — an Atlanta beauty.”
Small, whose prosthesis is a daily reminder of his close encounter with Mei Lan I, agreed — to a point.
“They’re cute,” he said. “But they can be dangerous, too.”
Mei Lan, another winter storm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Take one little tornado. Give it some toys and a warm place to snooze. Wrap it in black-and-white.
What have you got?
Mei Lan the panda cub, a whirlwind of activity as she strolls, rolls and gambols toward the 5-month mark. Zoo Atlanta’s baby giant panda is docile no longer, her doctor said Thursday.
“She was, uh, roly-poly,” said Dr. Maria Crane, the zoo’s chief veterinarian, who gives the cub weekly checkups. “She is much more active now.”
Crane, like most scientific types, does not like to exaggerate. If she did, Crane would probably compare Mei Lan, born Sept. 6 to Lun Lun, to a furry billiard ball — round and fast, bouncing off just about everything.
Not only is she fast, she’s growing. According to the zoo, Mei Lan now weighs 18.9 pounds. Last week, she made the scales groan at 18.2.
Length? Crane tried stretching a measuring tape from Mei Lan’s nose to tail, but it was like trying to measure an excited Labrador retriever. Crane reverted, instead, to the method grandma used. She eyedballed the kid, then declared: “She’s growing.”
How much? “She’s about the same length as last week.” That’s 34 inches, more or less.
While she may not be certain how long her young charge is, Crane knows Mei Lan is thriving. She gnaws on her toys. She rolls on her back. Her shadow bounces like a ball when the winter sun shines.
And, no matter the weather, she is a tempest, wrapped in black and white.
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