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Podcasts Take Two
Why pandas in captivity are often 'reproductively incompetent'
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Aug 30, 2013
Why pandas in captivity are often 'reproductively incompetent'
David Owen recently wrote about the challenges of getting pandas to reproduce for the New Yorker magazine. He joins Take Two to explain.
his picture taken on August 7, 2013 shows a giant panda next to blocks of ice (back R) to cool off in its enclosure at the Wuhan Zoo in Wuhan, in central China's Hubei province.
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STR/AFP/Getty Images
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David Owen recently wrote about the challenges of getting pandas to reproduce for the New Yorker magazine. He joins Take Two to explain.

As Cole Porter once quipped, birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Pandas do it too, when they're in the wild. Put them in captivity though and things get a lot trickier.

That's worrisome considering there are only about 2,000 pandas alive today and a sixth of them are in captivity. David Owen recently wrote about the challenges of getting pandas to reproduce for the New Yorker magazine.