Panda Updates- Friday, June 10

If you watched the movie The Jungle Book growing up, you probably came away with a few strong impressions of bear behavior. Unfortunately, bears don’t tend to perform choreographed dances and sing catchy songs, but one thing the movie got very right was that bears love to scratch!  

Our sun bears love to scratch their backs on whatever they can, including logs, the sides of their indoor dens, even the mesh training walls. The giant pandas have made use of another part of their surroundings for scratching: their built-in scales! Two of the giant panda dens have large, square permanent scale platforms that are about a foot high. Each platform is approximately three feet square, so they make excellent sleeping benches for the pandas. What I think a giant panda would tell you, though, is that while sleeping on the scale is great, the scratching opportunity is next-level! Since the platforms are square, they have rounded corners that the pandas seem to love rubbing their backs against. The platform makes a loud, squeaky noise when they push hard on it, so we can often hear the giant pandas scratching from all the way across the building. They certainly inspire us to look around and find new ways to enjoy our environment every day!