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Panda updates – Tuesday, August 11

In today’s update I thought I’d share with you an overview of what a typical day looks like as a member of the Panda Care Team. When the first team member arrives in the morning they check on each bear. For the first half hour it’s just one keeper, so this time is spent feeding the bears who are up and ready for some fresh bamboo. The opening team member also gets weights on the bears and starts the cleaning routine. Once the next keeper arrives, we can start shifting or moving bears around to different spaces. Throughout the day we will also fit in training sessions and play sessions. As you know from recent updates, Yang Yang has been very playful lately and has really been enjoying spending time behind the scenes with the Panda Care Team. Most of the afternoon consists of bringing each bear in to service the dayroom or dens that they were in and provide fresh bamboo and enrichment. If we have some extra free time, we can work on extra projects too. For closing routine, one keeper will weigh out overnight bamboo for each bear. The adults have been averaging 18 kilograms overnight, while Xi Lun and Ya Lun are currently getting around 35 kilograms. At the end of the day, we get a second weight on each bear. Sometimes their weight can fluctuate up to 20 pounds in a day depending on how much they’ve eaten! We record these weights and other updates or notes from the day in our daily log. Finally, we set up the dayrooms and den spaces for overnight so that each bear has enough until we’re back the next morning! 

Amanda D.
Keeper I, Mammals

Connect With Your Wild Side #onlyzooatl