Spend time in the company of giant pandas with this delightful collection of stories and first-person insights about their behavior, biology, and conservation from panda expert Dr. Brandie Smith, director of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
What is it about giant pandas that makes them nearly impossible to resist? Brandie Smith, director of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, and a true expert in giant pandas, gives readers a front-row seat to these miracles of nature, these bamboo-devouring carnivores, describing what it’s like to feed them, train them, cherish them, and help them survive.
Pandas, like people, have strong individual personalities, quirks, habits, likes, and dislikes. Through Smith’s eyes, we get to meet several generations of pandas who have called the National Zoo home. Smith addresses many misconceptions about giant pandas, revealing surprising truths about their biology, evolution, and the challenges involved with taking care of them. Giant pandas have a unique reproductive style that has worked perfectly for millions of years in the wild but has made it challenging for them to respond to climate change and habitat destruction, and makes propagating them in zoos extremely difficult.
With chapters on raising baby pandas, the diplomacy involved in exchanging pandas with China, and the ongoing quest to keep giant pandas from going extinct, In the Company of Pandas is the ultimate guide to these irresistible creatures and why we love them, written by one of the world’s leading experts.
Dr. Brandie Smith is the director of the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute at the Smithsonian Institution. With decades of experience in animal care, conservation, and zoo management, she has overseen critical breeding programs for endangered species and has personally witnessed some of the most dramatic moments in panda conservation history, including multiple births and rescue operations at one of America’s premier zoological institutions. Originally from Indiana, Pennsylvania, she grew up around animals and began her professional career as an intern at the Pittsburgh Zoo and the National Zoo.
Dr. Smith will be in conversation with Annalisa Meyer, director of brand management and communications at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Meyer leads the Zoo’s marketing and communications, bringing stories of wildlife, science and conservation to audiences around the world.