Five Myths About Pandas

Yes,pandas do harm one another, especially during the mating season when male pandas are establishing dominance or competing for females. In 2007, the first captive-born male died after an apparent fight with other pandas when it was freed into the wild.

Pandas attacks on humans are relatively unusual, but it happens. In 1984, the National Zoo’s Ling-Ling bit a keeper. Generally keepers do not enter the pandas’ enclosures when the animals are there. You should never stay too close to a panda.

2. Pandas are incompetent breeders.

Giant panda Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling at the National Zoo were a breeding pair for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, none of the five panda cubs have survived.

Some scientists think that reproductive incompetence is one important factor that has led to the panda’s endangered status. However, there’s no evidence proving that pandas are incompetent breeder in nature.

In the wild, a whole lot of male and female pandas keep the mating activity intense. It’s hard to mimic the scene in the zoo. In most zoos, the male is isolated from the female and they only meet during the fateful day.

3. Pandas are rare in captivity.

As of 2018, there are less than 400 pandas in captivity. And only about 50 pandas live outside China.

Though pandas have been lifted by from endangered species to vulnerable ones, wild pandas remain endangered.

4. Pandas are not your average bear.

Ask zoo visitors what makes pandas unique among bears, and they’re likely to say something about the tiny cubs, black-and-white coloring or bamboo diet. But all bears give birth to altricial (underdeveloped) young. And five species of bears are some combination of black and white, while the remaining species are either all white (polar bears), all black (American black bears) or remarkably variable (brown bears).

Meanwhile, although pandas do go heavy on bamboo, eating as much as 44 pounds a day, they retain the capacity to eat meat in both their tooth structure and gut flora. Chinese villagers report pandas breaking into livestock pens and consuming goats and sheep. In China, we recently photographed a giant panda feeding for several days on the carcass of a takin (a large goat-like ungulate). That places pandas at one end of a spectrum of omnivorous bear species, which eat a combination of plants, insects and meat. Only polar bears are all-meat eaters.

5. Pandas are lazy.

The adult giant pandas you see at the zoo seem like they would be just as comfortable on a lounge chair as on a mountainside. Their top speed appears to just exceed an amble. They spend most of the day chomping bamboo. Contrast this with images of polar bears stalking prey among the ice floes or brown bears fighting along salmon streams. Giant pandas appear to live the life of Riley.

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