Panda Updates – Wednesday, February 19

We had a little bit of maintenance work going on in the giant panda building yesterday. It wasn’t very noisy, but even still, the pandas aren’t always fans of things outside the usual routine. To help them exert control over their environment in these times of disruption, we like to give the pandas the opportunity to move away from the areas where work is being done. For example, for yesterday’s work, Lun Lun was given access to an outdoor habitat, a panda hallway, and an indoor den. At first, she spent some time outside eating bamboo. After a little while she wandered in to see what was going on in the building, but seemed to prefer the peace and quiet of the outdoor habitat and took a piece of bamboo from the indoor den out to keep eating in the habitat. Another hour passed, and she came in to enjoy the rest of her bamboo in the indoor den, where she remained. Even though the work in the building was done, she continued to have a choice of where she wanted to be for the rest of the afternoon- inside or outside. As always, it was up to her!
Michelle E.
Keeper III, Mammals

(photo by Jenny E.)