The giant panda

An endangered species, the giant panda can only be found in the mountain bamboo forests of Western China. There are only about 1,000 wild giant pandas left in the world. Giant pandas are members of the bear family, and they are mammals. Even though giant pandas look just like bears, they certainly do not behave like bears. Unlike their meat-eating relatives, giant pandas are vegetarians for the most part of their time. Their favourite food is bamboo. Giant pandas must eat a lot of bamboo everyday to get enough nourishment. In fact, they spend at least 12 hours everyday eating about 33 pounds of bamboo. However, if they are extremely hungry and bamboo is nowhere to be found, giant pandas may eat grass, fruits, or sometimes, small animals like chicken.

Giant pandas do not live in groups. They are loners! They only leave their territory from March to May to look for a mate. Female giant pandas usually give birth to twins. Baby giant pandas are very small, blind, pinkish, and weigh about 5 ounces at birth. Strangely, mother giant pandas tend to choose to raise just one baby and leave the other to die. Mother giant pandas feed their babies with milk. A baby giant panda opens its eyes at six to seven weeks. It starts to learn how to walk when it is about three or four months old. Mother giant pandas look after their babies for about 18 months. Once the young is strong enough, it bids farewell to its mother and moves out to live independently.

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