Okay, I know I've been in the Red Panda exhibit before because it's an amazing experience, but this is a whole nother level because a baby cub is here and I have my friend Jamie with me.

And I have to say, as soon as we walked in, he rolled over and he stretched.

Yeah, she was so cute.

I can't believe it.

Okay, how old is he?

Okay, so he's 53 days today.

And he is.

It's kind of fun to watch these new milestones occur.

Yeah.

So he is just this week starting to stay awake longer between feeds and interact with the stuffed animals that he has in the toys that we've given him.

He's starting to become very playful.

So watching his personality come out now is is really fun for us to have him in this pool.

Yeah, it's a stock tank.

Eventually.

Learn how to climb.

Right.

So yeah.

How does that look for him?

Is that going to come soon?

It's like.

It's like a baby, right?

They first start to crawl, then they start to walk.

They start to climb.

Yeah.

So like if he was with his parents still, he would still be in the nest box with them.

Oh okay.

How long do you usually stay in the nest spot?

Yeah.

They don't start to venture out until around 2 to 3 months old.

Okay, so he lived in an incubator for climate control for the first few weeks of his life.

But then once he started becoming a little bit more mobile, we moved in to a bigger crate.

You can see the stages here.

Yeah.

Okay.

But then as he.

He now is starting to learn to walk.

So I want to give him more space for him to use.

So he there he goes.

Can, you know, have the choice to do what he wants to do and let his, his body learn all the things about.

Yeah, walking and crawling and climbing.

Yeah.

So now he's in this big style I love that.

Yeah.

And he's one of Ryan's babies, right?

He's one of Riis babies.

I think Raya is the one that I got to feed bamboo last time when I was here doing that.

I mean, that's amazing.

And talk about just the conservation efforts that you guys are doing with red pandas and what that means for her now to have cubs.

Yeah.

So actually, it's a really cool story because Raya on when she was born five years ago, she had aspiration pneumonia on the second day of her life.

So we actually had to pull her in hand, raise her.

So I hand raised her.

So, mom, I know, I know, my grandma.

Mom.

Yeah.

So a lot of times hand raised animals aren't as good at breeding and reproducing because they don't learn from other red pandas.

They learn from humans, which sometimes sets them back.

But we were able to when she was four months old, we were able to put her back with her mom and her siblings, okay?

And they accepted her.

And so she still got to learn how to be a red panda from them.

Okay, so when we found out that she had cubs, we were so thrilled knowing that she was hand raised.

And she's also a first time mom.

But then when we found out she had five cubs, that's not.

I was just say that's not happened before from the Red Panda SSP coordinator.

She said, this is a red panda record.

And like a normal red Cheever two two Cubs.

Yeah.

Which meant to have three.

But that impacts the result of that.

Which is why we are down to one now.

Right.

So they were all born significantly smaller than they normally would have been.

And he was the biggest of all of them.

Okay.

So he was at a more normal birth weight than any of the rest of them.

And so yeah, one was born stillborn and then two were half his size.

So they were significantly smaller.

Yeah.

So their chances of survival were slim to none.

And we knew that going into it.

But it was super important for Raya to learn how to be a mom this first time around.

Unfortunately, first time moms, anyways, even if they aren't hand raised, sometimes have throwaway litters.

I know that's not nice to say, but that's the reality.

Yep.

And for her to have five, we wanted to give her the opportunity to try.

And she actually surprised us and did a really good job taking care of them.

And she had those natural maternal instincts right away.

She, she like took her did a good job.

I knew Mama Bear was so proud of her.

So proud of her.

Yeah.

And so now we have this little guy which effectively calling him or.

Yeah, we're calling him Big Brother.

That official name got his name because when we pulled the last remaining two for their chances of survival, there were two of them.

And in the middle of the night, I could not tell them apart when I was feeding them.

And they get fed according to their body weight.

So I had to make sure I had the right cub, the right amount, because they did way different.

Sure.

So I painted their ears one I painted red and one I painted with nail polish blue just so I could tell them apart easily.

Yeah, I feel like we had to do that with my identical twin grandsons.

Like you have to like paint a toenail or whatever.

Do you know which ones?

Which.

Yep.

So yeah, his he was bigger than the other one.

So we just started calling him big Red.

And the other one, Little Blue.

So how do their markings come in?

Because I know he's here next to the stuffies, and he doesn't look like that just yet.

So how does that develop over their lifespan?

Yeah, they it slowly comes in.

I can pick him up and show you.

Can you.

Yeah.

So you can kind of see if you look from the top, all these little tiny little guard hairs are starting to come in.

And that's his more red hair okay.

His tail is starting to get stripes, which he didn't have stripes on it.

So around he's almost two months old.

His mom, when she was about two and a half to three months.

She was really dark at that point.

So okay.

Yeah, it just slowly continues to come in as they get bigger.

His mask is starting to to show up.

He's adorable.

He is such a cutie.

Can I can I touch him?

Yeah.

Oh, it is so soft.

Can I hold him?

No.

What do I do?

What did you told him?

Yeah.

He's not going to break.

He's not going to break.

He's like a puppy.

Yeah.

This is the coolest thing ever.

Okay, now.

Now you can tell people you've held the red pants.

Okay, so now he's back staged here?

Yeah, he's staying in the hospital.

Staying nice and cozy.

Nice and cozy with me, too.

When does he come out to display?

Like, what does that process look like for you guys on making those kinds of decisions.

So every animal is different.

Raya.

We we were able to try to reintroduce her to her family at four months old, but she was also sick when we had her.

He's not he's healthy, okay.

He's meeting all the milestones.

He's growing.

He's doing really well.

They wean at 90 days old.

Okay.

So around that time is probably when we'll try to do some housing with his parents and see if we can reintroduce them.

It might not work, but we're going to try.

Okay.

And if it doesn't work, we do have a backup plan of an exhibit that he could be housed in temporarily until he does get placed at another zoo.

But the hopes is, is that he can be reintroduced to them and and be on habitat with his family so he can learn to be a red panda and grow like a red panda.

And this is just so cool.

This is I know you can't get to do this at backstage all the time, but I get this experience and I have to say, this is pretty amazing.

But you guys, this is not the only baby happening here at Potawatomi.

So you guys have fantastic conservation efforts that you're doing and the reasons behind them making sure that we're well populated with all the different species.

What else do you have?

That's.

Yeah, we I feel like we are always having different babies.

So right now we have four peck lips, our own peccaries, two different moms have given birth.

So there are four.

One is smaller than the other three.

So they're in the habitat.

When they have their babies, they're up and moving around and running around with the herd right away.

So you see them the day they are born.

So they're out there, they're doing well, they're eating and they're thriving.

And then we also have to marmoset babies, our family in our learning center, our marmosets.

That family just keeps growing as well.

So there are twins down there.

They were I think they're a few weeks old now, but you can see them.

They're starting to come off of Mom and Dad's back a little bit and venturing out on the perching so you can get.

We can see when we're out here.

Okay.

They're on exhibit two.

Very good.

Remind everybody what's your zoo?

Hours out are now for the summer because we're still in summer hours.

We are still in summer hours.

Yeah, I know you guys are busy all the time.

Yep.

Come out and see us.

We are open 10 a.m.

until 7 p.m.

through August.

And then in September we will close at 5 p.m.

instead of seven.

Okay, perfect.

Well, this is just fantastic.

I hope everybody you get your zoom membership support everything that you guys do here so we can get more cute little baby comes like this.

Oh God.

It's my favorite.

Are his little paws.

He's been panda pause here.

So cute.

He's starting to get his teeth.

Well, don't bite me.

They're not that sharp.

Okay.

It's good.