After a decade of caring for camels, lions, lynxes and lemurs, Joel Frías joined the team handling the Chapultepec Zoo’s star attraction: the giant pandas.
It was 2000, and Mexico City’s zoo, nestled in its massive forested urban oasis, had been the first outside China to successfully breed giant pandas.
Xin Xin, the last panda born from that program, was 10 years old then. Now she’s 35, elderly by captive panda standards, and the last giant panda in Latin America.
Every morning, Frías arrives early to quietly check on her breathing before preparing a breakfast of biscuits, cooked rice, carrots, and crushed apples.
“Even if it’s raining ... even if it’s really cold, I’d rather be checking the animals than be at a desk,” said the 60-year-old zookeeper, who wears small panda buttons pinned to his vest.
Giant pandas like Xin Xin have an average life expectancy in the wild of 15 years. In captivity, they’ve lived as long as 38.
The pandas that once were at risk of extinction have rebounded thanks to conservation programs and now number some 2,300, with about 500 of those in zoos around the world.
Mexico’s program started in 1975, when China gave it Pe Pe and Ying Ying, a pair that yielded seven cubs, four of whom reached adulthood. One of those original offspring was Xin Xin’s mother Tohui.
Xin Xin has outlived her parents, aunts and uncles, but she never had cubs, so Mexico’s panda run could end with her.
The Mexican government has not said what it will do when Xin Xin dies. China now charges $1 million a year to loan pandas for 10 to 15 years.
Caring for an aged panda When Frías joined the team caring for the pandas, he started by sitting with Xin Xin and speaking to her so she would grow accustomed to his voice. He made sure to wear the same fragrance each day so that she would recognize his scent.
Eventually, he gained her trust to the point that he could get close enough to touch her.
Now, after 25 years caring for her, Frías can easily figure out what she wants.
“When she’s hungry and nervous, she starts with the stereotypical (behavior) of getting up and walking from one side to the other,” he said. “That means she wants out or that she’s hungry.” In addition to the fruits and veggies she gets twice a day, she eats about 28 pounds (13 kilograms) of bamboo branches.
Xin Xin sleeps about 15 hours a day, so for several years now, Frías has led her through daily exercises of no more than 10 minutes at a time, where she will sit, open her mouth, extend her paw and lie down. The routine allows her veterinarians to regularly check her heart, breathing and take blood samples.
Zoo Director Alberto Olascoaga said that despite Xin Xin’s advanced age, “she’s completely in good health.” Her teeth and joints aren’t in great shape, but that’s normal for an elderly panda.
On a typical day, Xin Xin’s flock of fans mill about outside her leafy enclosure oohing and ahhing at the fluffy bear munching bamboo on the other side of the glass.
After hearing of Xin Xin’s most recent birthday in July, Jazmín Montoya, a 23-year-old lawyer from the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, convinced her mother and two sisters to drive to Mexico City to visit the panda.
“We’re not ready yet” to say goodbye, Montoya said. It will be “a great loss for the nation.”
Frías isn’t ready for that day either.
Watching her outside the enclosure, the zookeeper grew emotional recalling how when she was young Xin Xin would do somersaults and run around when they released her into her enclosure in the mornings.
“She has already given us 35 years well lived. In fact, physically she’s doing better than I am,” he said, collecting himself. But her departure will also close a chapter for the zookeeper. “If she goes, I will too.”
