Panda Updates – Monday, March 8

A playful panda sure can muddy the water! Spring is hopefully just around the corner. This means that on nice days, we can fill the pools for the pandas in their outdoor habitats. The giant pandas have separate sources of clean and continually refreshed drinking water; the pools are for play! Yang Yang especially is known to enjoy playing in the water on occasion. Water play tends to increase as pandas go into their breeding season. Even though the adults are no longer breeding, they do still experience some hormone fluctuations, so we do see some of the changes that go along with that as we’re coming up on what would be the typical breeding season. This means that Yang Yang may play in water more often now if given the opportunity.

Adrianna and I offered him the pool on a nice day recently. We were busy caring for the other bears when we heard water splashing out and rushed to try to catch some of his silly antics. Unfortunately, we missed him in the pool, but we saw him climbing out sopping wet, so we at least know he used it. If you visit the Zoo soon, you might be lucky enough to catch a panda splashing around!

Megan H.
Keeper I, Mammals