With Fans Watching, Tai Shan Thrives

Cub's Routine Brings Boom Times to Zoo

A small group started to form yesterday about 7 a.m., intent on seeing one of the best nature shows in town. On cue, the National Zoo's giant panda cub, Tai Shan, crawled on and nipped at his mother, pranced about the yard, climbed a favorite tree, dangled upside down, got wedged between the branches, worked himself free and, exhausted, finally settled on a comfy sycamore limb to nap.

The regulars agreed: It had been a very good morning for cub watching.

"He's just so adorable," gushed Sharon Hordesky, 54, a District resident and zoo volunteer who tries to see Tai Shan a couple of times a week. "He has my heart."

Since his birth last summer, the National Zoo's first surviving panda cub has captured a lot of hearts. The zoo's giant panda Web site, with cameras that chronicle Tai Shan's every move, has had about 16 million hits since the cub was born July 9. And more than 388,000 people have visited the Panda House since he went on public view in early December.

With the weather warming, the zoo expects its cub crowds to grow. It has been handling more visitors since January, when Tai Shan began going outside, and recently expanded the official viewing hours to between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. daily.

Free timed-entry tickets continue to be available through May via the zoo's Web site. But truth be told, any cub lover can usually just drop by, especially early in the morning or after 3 p.m.

"We let people in who don't have tickets, depending on how crowded it is," said Peper Long, a zoo spokeswoman. "But that may change if the crowds get bigger."

The nearly 9-month-old Tai Shan (pronounced "ty shahn") weighs about 40 pounds and has definitely become a creature of habit.

"He spends all his day in a tree," said Lisa Stevens, an assistant curator and the author of the well-read, twice-a-week Web reports on the cub's progress. "He comes down for short periods to play and nurse."

But some habits, she conceded, aren't as endearing.

Unlike his mother, Mei Xiang (may shyahng), or his father, Tian Tian (tyen tyen), Tai Shan has not yet associated humans with food. So he is in no hurry to come in at night.

"Right now, I'm paying overtime because he's not on our schedule," Stevens said. "On Saturday, a keeper didn't leave until 9:30 p.m. because he didn't come down [from the tree] until 8:30 p.m."