Pandas

Soldato
Joined
4 Feb 2018
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13,162
Are they the drunks of the animal world or just forever young?

I dont know why but this actually made me laugh and smile. Its the Daily Mail but if you have any sense of enjoyment its worth seeing.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...slide-somersault-snow-falls-National-Zoo.html
This is the heartwarming moment a pair of giant pandas slide down a snow covered hill and raise their arms in excitement.

Footage captured at Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. shows 22-year-old female giant panda Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, a 23-year-old adult male giant panda, revel in the snow.

The pandas, who were both born in China, lie flat on their backs as they slide downhill and soak in the snow.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
4,896
I have seen some up close when I visited China Sichuan.

pandas are lazy! You get about 30min to see them doing anything during their morning feed that’s it. They basically climb up and down and roam about but lost of the time they doing anything is sitting there going through basket after basket of bamboo shoots.

the young ones are defiantly more playful. But adults are smelly and lazy bums. I visit the park 3 times to catch sight of pandas doing anything. First visit (mid day) saw zero panda. Second visit (10am) saw a couple of teenage pandas (pretty big heft already) lying on tree branches that are 30m up in the air. Swaying in the wind. Quite a sight and makes one wonder how they get up so high with their heft.

last visit (8am jobby) saw all the pandas busy eating, playing, fighting and weeing.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
14 Apr 2017
Posts
3,511
Location
London
My wife, in common with many women I think, is absolutely nuts about pandas.
In the 90s and 00s, prior to this Covid unpleasantness, when we’d visit Florida once or twice per year, I had to schedule a flight from London to Atlanta, arriving midday or early afternoon.
We’d take a shuttle to an airport hotel/motel, drop the bags, then another shuttle back to the airport, take a MARTA train to 5 Points station, central Atlanta, then a MARTA bus to Zoo Atlanta, Grant Park.
She’d head straight for the pandas, I’m sure that they remembered her, I could imagine one nudging another and saying, “Heads up, Nicky’s here again!”
She’d watch them playing for ages, then after giving a cursory glance at the lions and tigers, we’d take a bus or taxi back to 5 Points, have an early dinner, then train back to the airport, shuttle to the hotel.
Next day fly to Tampa, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples or wherever, and go flat out by the pool in a rented house, necking Margaritas.
She’d go anywhere where there were pandas, National Zoo Washington D.C., San Diego Zoo, Memphis Zoo.
In the 80s, maybe 90s, I’d occasionally take her to Paris Zoo, in the park at Vincennes, to see their panda, but one day we arrived and there was a printed sign on his enclosure, something like, Nous avons le regret de vous informer que “Blank” le panda est mort.”
(“Blank” the panda had died)
She can’t read French, so I told her that he’d been moved to Beauval Zoo, in central France, gulp!
 
Caporegime
Joined
1 Dec 2010
Posts
52,101
Location
Welling, London
My wife, in common with many women I think, is absolutely nuts about pandas.
In the 90s and 00s, prior to this Covid unpleasantness, when we’d visit Florida once or twice per year, I had to schedule a flight from London to Atlanta, arriving midday or early afternoon.
We’d take a shuttle to an airport hotel/motel, drop the bags, then another shuttle back to the airport, take a MARTA train to 5 Points station, central Atlanta, then a MARTA bus to Zoo Atlanta, Grant Park.
She’d head straight for the pandas, I’m sure that they remembered her, I could imagine one nudging another and saying, “Heads up, Nicky’s here again!”
She’d watch them playing for ages, then after giving a cursory glance at the lions and tigers, we’d take a bus or taxi back to 5 Points, have an early dinner, then train back to the airport, shuttle to the hotel.
Next day fly to Tampa, Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples or wherever, and go flat out by the pool in a rented house, necking Margaritas.
She’d go anywhere where there were pandas, National Zoo Washington D.C., San Diego Zoo, Memphis Zoo.
In the 80s, maybe 90s, I’d occasionally take her to Paris Zoo, in the park at Vincennes, to see their panda, but one day we arrived and there was a printed sign on his enclosure, something like, Nous avons le regret de vous informer que “Blank” le panda est mort.”
(“Blank” the panda had died)
She can’t read French, so I told her that he’d been moved to Beauval Zoo, in central France, gulp!
There are three animals in the world women go particularly nuts over, Pandas, Koalas and Dolphins.

Many seem strangely taken by sloths too.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
14 Apr 2017
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3,511
Location
London
There are three animals in the world women go particularly nuts over, Pandas, Koalas and Dolphins.

Many seem strangely taken by sloths too.

You’ve got that right, visiting my son in Brisbane, my wife made a fuss of him, (she’s not his mother), then asked where could she see koalas.
He took us to Steve Irwin’s Zoo Australia on the Sunshine Coast, and she couldn’t wait to cuddle one and have her photo taken.
As for dolphins, a New Yorker friend suggested mahi-mahi in a Long Island restaurant, saying that it was dolphin!
My wife went nuts, until the restaurant manager explained that it wasn’t dolphin, it’s just called dolphin fish!
She probably would try to stroke a sloth if she had the chance though.
 
Man of Honour
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London
aye, there is a reason why panda is near extinction...

From www.onekindplanet

With only about 1,000 giant pandas left in the wild, they are considered endangered, and listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Giant pandas were once hunted by the Chinese, who believed their pelts provided magical protection against evil spirits, but hunting now carries strict penalties in China, so is less of a conservation issue now.

Humans and destruction of habitat now pose the biggest threat to giant pandas. This includes erosion of habitat due to clearing of areas for crop cultivation, and natural die-back of bamboo. The presence of built up areas prevent giant pandas from moving to new areas, so loss of bamboo forests mean many will starve.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
29 Mar 2003
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56,791
Location
Stoke on Trent
I have a friend who shares Panda videos nearly every day and I watch them all, they just make me smile.

I'm lucky my wife shares an interest in animal documentaries and most evenings we watch something whether it's Dogs Behaving Badly or a new Safari programme that's on. She was crying over a baby hyena last night.
We also visit every zoo we can and my 60th surprise was at Knowsley Safari Park.
 
Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2013
Posts
4,363
i'm always bemused by panda colouring. nature usually does stuff for camo reasons, pandas would only blend in at a Kiss concert.
there's some mint Youtube vids of a Japanese keeper who looks after a pack of them at some zoo, every time she tried to work they just mob her and harrass her.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
24 Sep 2005
Posts
35,487
I love pandas but I begrudge them. All the money that goes towards keeping them going could be far better spent preserving ecosystems containing thousands and thousands of different species. In that sense, they are grossly 'over funded'!

They are cute though... beauty prevails again!
 
Man of Honour
Joined
29 Mar 2003
Posts
56,791
Location
Stoke on Trent
I love pandas but I begrudge them. All the money that goes towards keeping them going could be far better spent preserving ecosystems containing thousands and thousands of different species. In that sense, they are grossly 'over funded'!

They are cute though... beauty prevails again!

I agree, I've always said they are that crap that if left to their own devices they would end up going extinct even without being hunted - it's their time.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
14 Apr 2017
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London
i'm always bemused by panda colouring. nature usually does stuff for camo reasons, pandas would only blend in at a Kiss concert.
there's some mint Youtube vids of a Japanese keeper who looks after a pack of them at some zoo, every time she tried to work they just mob her and harrass her.

According to onekindplanet, their colouring is for camouflage in their natural habitat, perhaps with that colour pattern, their natural habitat was in the studio where “The Black and White Minstrel Show” was filmed.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
14 Apr 2017
Posts
3,511
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London
I love pandas. They're so dumb and cute and cuddly and almost extinct.

I want a panda. Do Tesco sell them?

I doubt that Tesco could afford them, Waitrose maybe.
They’re more like the kind of thing that Harrods might carry, but you’d need a doozy of a cat flap.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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48,796
Location
All over the world...
You’ve got that right, visiting my son in Brisbane, my wife made a fuss of him, (she’s not his mother), then asked where could she see koalas.
He took us to Steve Irwin’s Zoo Australia on the Sunshine Coast, and she couldn’t wait to cuddle one and have her photo taken.
As for dolphins, a New Yorker friend suggested mahi-mahi in a Long Island restaurant, saying that it was dolphin!
My wife went nuts, until the restaurant manager explained that it wasn’t dolphin, it’s just called dolphin fish!
She probably would try to stroke a sloth if she had the chance though.
Would have been better to go to the koala sanctuary in Brisbane. I spent quite a few times in Brisbane as my youngest brother lived there for quite a few yrs and visited that place. It was pretty damn awesome and you could get up close to the koalas. They stink of eucalyptus though as that is their main diet I think.
I did go to the Steve Irwin zoo but thought it was a monumental waste of money for what it was. But at least got to see some crocs and tigers I guess
 
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