If anyone has a question about giant pandas, Ashley Jaeger probably knows the answer.
For example, Jaeger, 23, knows the bears don't hibernate because bamboo, their favorite food, doesn't provide enough energy and nutrients to allow them to sleep for the whole winter.
She also knows that all panda babies are born premature, Jaeger said.
Jaeger, a Tucson native and Catalina Foothills High School graduate, is a semi-finalist for a global conservation program that would allow her to travel to China to learn more about the endangered animals.
If she fares well there, she could be chosen for the Chengdu, China, "Pambassador" program, which will send three people on a worldwide "Global Panda Conservation Tour" for up to seven months.
The whole program is a year long.
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"I'm just looking forward to the experience because it's so unique," said Jaeger, who graduated from Arizona State University in 2011 with a degree in biomedical engineering.
She is one of 24 people from North and South America competing for the program, which will send four people from the Americas to the Chengdu Panda Base in China for three weeks to reintroduce pandas to the wild and learn about conservation efforts.
She will compete with her three Americas counterparts and 12 others picked from around the world to be named a "Pambassador."
Before thinking about China, she has to take part in another competition in Washington D.C., where the semi-finalists will compete in a series of panda-related challenges.
She found the competition on Facebook while she was researching information about a panda born at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., where Jaeger currently lives.
"At first, I thought the competition was a gimmick because it was too good to be true," she said.
Jaeger was chosen after she uploaded a video to Facebook, solicited testimonials from friends who knew about her love for pandas and completed other online tasks.
She fell in love with the animals after her parents gave her a stuffed panda bear when she was a child. Her first research paper in elementary school focused on pandas, she said.
"I learned everything I could as a little girl and fell in love with it," she said.
Now, she's on the verge of experiencing her dream.
"I can't believe this exists because this is exactly what I wanted," she said.
Contact reporter Jamar Younger at jyounger@azstarnet.com or 573-4115.
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