How One Biologist Applies His 'Bear Whisperer' Know-How To Chinese Panda Cubs

For quite 25 years, wildlife biologist Ben Kilham has been raising orphaned black bears. The new documentary "Pandas" shows how he's also working with orphaned panda cubs in China. 

Here & Now's Lisa Mullins talks with Kilham about his work. 

Interview Highlights

On Kilham's method of working with the pandas

I remember once we got our first two pandas, and therefore the pandas are kept in zoo-like conditions. and therefore the keepers were generally scared of pandas, and therefore the keepers immediately observed and complained that the pandas liked Jake better than they liked them. and that we had to elucidate to them that — first of all the Chinese hadn't had pets until recently — and that we had to elucidate to them that that they had to treat the panda love it was a sentient being, love it was another person, and not like an object. 

In practicality, it means if you've a dog reception and it is your pet and somebody comes into your house who doesn't like dogs, your dog's not getting to like them either. 

The commonality between all species of mammals is extremely close. And if you study behavior, you'll see these commonalities. And it came right to the surface with these first cubs. They didn't like or trust the keepers because the keepers were treating them like objects. As soon because the keepers recognized and understood what we were telling them, the pandas started interacting with them and liking them. 

On the similarities and differences between black bears and pandas 

I had a rule out New Hampshire and that we maintained it China — we do not inflict our behavior on the bear. If the bears want to play with us, we respond, but we do not go pat them on the top and incite them to wrestle or play or do any of these things. 

The giant panda may be a much earlier sort of bear, around 13 million years old. The black bears are around 6 million years old, and that they came off the evolutionary tree at different stages. 

The juvenile period for both of them is eighteen months to 2 years. My examples come from my experience with black bears. I even have a bear named Squirty who has been in both of the books that I've written, who came to me as a three-pound cub that was seven weeks old. She's now 22 years old together with her 11th litter of cubs. She had no experience together with her mother outside of the den. So to offer her that have , i might take her for walks — she instinctively would follow me. But if she wasn't following me, she wouldn't leave a two-acre territory. And on those walks, up to nine hours at a time, she had an experience of her natural environment, of other bears, of potential predators, like coyotes. then i might return her safely to the remote enclosure. She felt obligated to follow me until she reached 18 months old which was the traditional time of dispersal, at which era her behavior changed and she or he was able to get on her own.