Panda Updates – Monday, May 21

Hello from Panda Land! While I got to spend some time with the giant pandas one day last week, it had been a while before that since I last worked this routine. Not only are Xi Lun and Ya Lun fully weaned, but we are also in the heart of bamboo shoot season. On top of that, we have new animal care interns starting to train in our areas. Added all up, it was a bit of a different (but rather nice) day! While Yang Yang wasn’t so sure about the shoots we offered him this morning, all of the ladies were content to eat and sleep the morning away. I’ve been a bit spoiled in much of my time in the giant panda area in that mostly the interns I’ve worked with have been previously trained by the primary giant panda care team. They know what they’re doing and jump in where needed. Today I got to show our new intern the ropes on her first day, and while I’ve done that for more interns than I can count in the carnivore area, this was a first for me here. While I know the primary team will definitely have more detailed information for her, our new intern and I had a good day while we cleaned, prepared diets, and weighed out a whole bunch of bamboo shoots. With a visit to see Idgie the red panda rounding out the afternoon, I think we had a pretty successful day.
Erin D.
Keeper II, Mammals