Panda Updates – Monday, December 30

Ninety-nine percent of the giant panda’s diet consists of bamboo. Here at the Zoo, we also supplement their diet with leafeater biscuits and produce to ensure we’re meeting all of their nutritional needs. Giant pandas eat the leaves of the bamboo, but they also eat the culm of the bamboo. This means that they are peeling the thin, hard exterior layer of the bamboo stalk and eating the woody fibrous material on the inside of the stalk. Bamboo is a really tough plant, but giant pandas are built to have the jaw strength to break through it. Whenever the giant pandas get up and move to another area of their space, the pile of shards that’s collected falls off. When the Panda Care Team goes into that space to clean, we are able to know where they spent some time eating.

Amanda D.
Keeper I, Mammals