Panda Updates – Monday, December 9

The colder months are generally the busiest time of year for the Panda Care Team and the pandas in our care. During this time, all of the pandas are eating more and sleeping less. For the giant pandas, this means a lot of culming the bamboo (the process by which they remove the hard exterior from the outside of a piece of bamboo and eat the somewhat softer inside), and for the Panda Care Team it means constantly feeding all of the pandas and picking up bamboo shrapnel from their habitats. Although not nearly as big as the giant pandas, Idgie the red panda goes through a similar phase, where she is hungry, active, and eating lots of bamboo. She gets so excited for her dinner sometimes that some of the banana smears all over her little nose. It doesn’t seem to bother her, and she quickly removes it when she gets the chance. Bananas are a hot commodity around here, and none of the pandas let them go to waste!
Danica W.
Keeper II, Mammals

(video by Danica W.)