National Panda Day

 

Created by concerned conservationists, National Panda Day observed on 16 March aims to educate about and celebrate this shy and sedentary mammal. In the wild, the giant panda lives in China's mountain habitats of bamboo forests. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identifies this species as "vulnerable".

Panda Facts

Pandas are loners and they prefer to have their own space. Although they may look cuddly and friendly, but they are actually very shy animals.

Giant pandas are a smaller species of the bear family. Males only weigh up to 275 pounds and females up to 220 pounds.

Unlike other bears, panda bears don’t hibernate. The reason behind is that they can’t stop eating. Their main diet, bamboo, prevents them from building fat reserves to last them through the winter. So, when the cold winter approaches, they move lower down from the mountains to warmer temperatures.

Pandas are actually born pink and will grow their black and white fur after a few weeks. 

A panda’s average life span in the wild is 14 – 20 years. There are currently 1,864 giant pandas in the wild.

Pandas love bamboo! They subsist almost entirely on bamboo, they must eat around 26 – 84 pounds of it every day, depending on what part of the bamboo they are eating. But sometimes there isn’t enough bamboo around to sustain the large bears, so giant pandas occasionally supplement their bamboo-diet with rodents, fish, insects, or birds.