Panda Updates – Friday, July 9

Many of you may know that it is tradition for the pandas to get ice “cakes” for their birthdays every year. However, we sometimes like to give them ice “cakes” at other times, too. This year, they got some festive ice treats for the Fourth of July. The water was dyed blue with nontoxic food coloring and had some apples and bananas frozen in to make them appropriately red, white, and blue (we’ll just pretend that the bananas were white). Yang Yang absolutely loved his and worked at it until he got all of his fruit out. Xi Lun decided that she preferred to self-anoint with hers and rubbed it all over her head and chest. Ya Lun thought about trying to get the fruit out and pawed at it a bit before deciding that it was too much effort. And, well, Lun Lun at least acknowledged hers before going off to eat her lunch of bamboo. We keepers certainly had fun watching how each of the bears interacted differently with their special enrichment, and the pandas seemed to enjoy getting something different, too!

(photo: Megan H.)

Megan H.
Keeper I, Mammals