Panda Updates – Wednesday, January 6

Yang Yang had a very playful day recently! We have some tough canvas strips that we use to play tug-of-war with him, so the other day I grabbed one to see if he was interested in a round or two. He was in the behind the scenes dens eating and seemed torn between his dueling desires to play and to continue eating. I tossed his end of the canvas to him, which caught his attention. Normally he grabs onto it with his mouth and uses his extremely strong jaw muscles to pull against us (and eventually win every time). This day, however, he used his paws! He grabbed on with his two front paws and resisted my pulls. He still seemed to be considering whether it was worth pausing his bamboo meal, but every time I pulled a little, he tightened his grip. Eventually he went all in, twisting and pulling with his paws, but thumbs won out over pseudothumbs and in the end, I had finally won a round of tug-of-war against Yang Yang, master of the tug! Don’t worry about his pride, though. When I offered him a rematch, he went back to using his mouth and reclaimed his champion title!  

Michelle E.
Keeper III, Mammals