This Discovery In Panda Communication Could Save The Species, If Scientists Are Correct

by N/A, 8 years ago | 2 min read

A five-year study at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in southwestern Sichuan province may have finally tapped into the mysterious minds of pandas. You know, pandas that are struggling with breeding, whether in captivity and lacking interest or in the wild and struggling with competition? Those pandas. Figuring out what their communication patterns indicate may help scientists assist in getting pandas to start getting busy more often.

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The Research Center has almost 200 pandas, which accounts for 60% of the world's captive pandas, so the sample size for this study was plentiful.

The study believes to have deciphered 13 different vocalization patterns in pandas from differing activities such as: fighting, courting and nursing their young, and correlating noises with certain behaviors. This information may help scientists further understand the courting process and child rearing gestures, in a panda population that is in desperate need of reproduction.

The study was mostly focused on breeding, as you can imagine, so the attention was especially payed toward panda cubs and females.

Cubs were found to make a wow-wow noise when sad vs. a gee-gee noise when in need of their mothers for feeding. Those sounds may sound a little ambiguous, but it really has been quite a breakthrough. Males reportedly baa like a sheep when looking for a mate. Well, maybe a little more baa-ing is what we need to keep an ear out for in the panda community!

Thankfully, the panda population has been slowly, but surely rising in the past decade, reportedly by 17% (which is still only a total of 1,864). These numbers clearly need to continue rising, and these vocal patterns could be the key.

Zhang Hemin, head of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, explained:

"Pandas in the growth process are very similar to humans, they like to be with their mother. It's during this time they also learn to speak. They slowly learn roaring, barking, wailing, screaming and other intense sounds."

There you have it: the key to pandas finally finding their mojo rest within their roaring, barking, wailing and screaming patterns. Now that we understand a few of those, we can help.