Panda Files: "Just The Facts"

They seem pretty quiet, but giant pandas can bleat, roar, growl, and honk.

Giant pandas are technically carnivores, but they have adapted to live mostly on bamboo. They will eat small mammals if they can catch them, though!

Like other types of bears, giant pandas are curious and playful, especially when they’re young. In zoos, they like to play with enrichment items like piles of ice or sawdust, puzzles made of bamboo with food inside, and different scents like spices.

Giant pandas have unusually thick and heavy bones for their size, but they are also very flexible and like to do somersaults.

The People's Republic of China sent two giant pandas, Basi and Yuan Yuan, to the San Diego Zoo for a 200-day loan in 1987. More than two million people were able to view the pandas during their stay.

On August 21, 1999, Bai Yun gave birth to Hua Mei, the first giant panda born in North America to survive to adulthood. Millions of people around the world watched Hua Mei grow up via the Zoo's Panda Cam.

In 1979, the Zoo began working with Chinese zoos to help many of China's endangered animals, including red pandas, takins, and Manchurian cranes.

A panda narrator is at the panda's main viewing area daily to share the latest news and to answer guests' questions about the "bamboo bears."
Bamboo is grown on Zoo grounds and at several off-grounds locations to supply the pandas with their daily meals.

Giant Panda Cub Debut This Week At The San Diago Zoo

This week the San Diago Zoo debuted it's new star.  Here is a gallery of photos taken this afternoon as the new star, Xiao Liwu, explores his new home.
  The San Diego Zoo has had a love affair with giant pandas ever since two of the black-and-white bears came to visit in 1987. After years of red tape and tons of application paperwork, the Zoo and China agreed on a 12-year research loan of two giant pandas, Bai Yun and Shi Shi. A brand-new exhibit area was built for our panda guests, which has since been expanded and renovated and is now called the Giant Panda Research Station. We currently have four giant pandas—Bai Yun, Gao Gao, Yun Zi, and our newest cub, born on July 29, 2012.

Our pandas enjoy deluxe accommodations with larger exhibit areas and extra vegetation and climbing structures. You'll enjoy the newer exhibit area too, with its winding, elevated viewing paths that give great panda-watching opportunities of the two main enclosures.


Visiting the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park helps support our studies of wild giant panda populations. San Diego Zoo Global established its first conservation science program for wild pandas at the Foping Nature Reserve in China in 2006. The program utilizes radiotelemetry to research several important areas to futher our understanding of natural giant panda behavior and ecology. These include mating strategies and genetic diversity of panda populations, denning ecology, habitat use and movement patterns, and human disturbance.

"Long day time for a little nap."

Panda Files: "First Time"

San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cub Explores Outside Habitat, Greets Public for First Time

     It was a big day for the San Diego Zoo’s panda cub, Xiao Liwu: this was his first time in front of onlookers. The cub stepped into the outside habitat by himself this morning and climbed through the bamboo as employees and media representatives got their first glimpses of the five-month-old cub.

     Panda staff say the cub is a confident climber but may have some tumbles while he’s getting used to the new habitat, which is very normal. There are trees, a moat and rocks to climb over, which are all new elements for the cub.

     Only 1,600 giant pandas are believed to exist in the wild, and the species is primarily threatened by habitat loss. San Diego Zoo Global, in conjunction with giant panda experts from the People’s Republic of China, continues to work on science-based panda conservation programs at the Zoo and in China.Photo taken on Jan. 9, 2013, by Ken Bohn, San Diego Zoo.

The Panda Files: "Barking Up a Tree"

Panda Cub Xiao Liwu, Barking Up a Tree
SAN DIEGO- San Diego Zoo keepers placed a small section of a tree branch and some fresh bamboo on the ground for the panda cub’s 17thexam this morning. Xiao Liwu was eager to explore and climbed over the branch while practicing his coordinated climbing skills for keepers. The 19-week-old panda weighed 14 pounds this morning when he was brought in for his weekly veterinary exam and continues to grow. Only 1,600 giant pandas are believed to exist in the wild, and the species is primarily threatened by habitat loss. San Diego Zoo Global, in conjunction with giant panda experts from the People’s Republic of China, continues to work on science-based panda conservation programs at the Zoo and in China.Photo taken on Dec. 13, 2012, by Ken Bohn, San Diego Zoo.