Panda Updates – Monday, February 10

Things have been pretty quiet in the giant panda building lately. We are still offering rivercane bamboo (the long and thin species that Heather talked about in a previous update). Rivercane is a bamboo that the pandas generally culm the outer layer off of, so while they are busy eating all day, the Panda Care Team is picking up the leftover bamboo shrapnel that is left behind. This can make for some pretty busy days, because usually by the time we have the leftovers from one panda cleaned up, another panda is ready for more bamboo, and the cycle starts all over again. Last week, after a particularly busy day, keeper Heather and I pulled up the controls for PandaCam and saw Yang Yang had created a puzzle for himself. He managed to get some of his bamboo wedged in the dayroom structure, and while he thought his 300-pound body was going to be enough to pull it free, it was only enough to get the piece more stuck. He eventually gave up and moved on to another piece, but we sure got a kick out of it and some comic relief from our busy day. Check out the video on our Facebook or Instagram page!
Danica W.
Keeper II, Mammals