My Town Monday: Pandamania in San Diego, CA

If you live in San Diego or have visited here or have watched the news recently, one thing you'll have figured out about us: we love our zoo!

And, right now, we'll all about giant pandas! Your average man on the San Diego street could fill your ear with panda facts, particularly Yun Zi panda facts.

Here is our Yun Zi, the FIFTH Giant Panda born at the San Diego Zoo. Ahem. Need I point out that this is a U.S. zoo record? We also have more giant pandas than any other U.S. zoo (five). Not that I'm bragging...

-Yun Zi means Son of Cloud. (From this, you may have guessed his mother's name: Bai Yun/White Cloud)
-When Yun Zi was born this past August, he was the size of a stick of butter and hairless and blind (just like a stick of butter!). This is all normal, by the way.
-Mother pandas look after their babies for two years. (If I were a giant panda mother, I would already be experiencing empty nest syndrome. There are days when this sounds quite wonderful.)
-Pandas spend about 12 hours a day, eating 84 pounds of bamboo. They have to eat so much bamboo because it's super low in nutrients. (This is a little like me grazing on my favorite food--licorice!) We grow bamboo on and off the zoo grounds, just to feed our pandas' habit.

Yun Zi's four siblings were born here (3 sisters and a brother). Yun Zi has been the shyest and, as a result, didn't go on display until he was 5 months old (last Thursday). He'll be on display 9am-noon daily, unless there's inclement weather (yeah, right, like we experience that!) or he's moody or ill. He currently weighs about 19 pounds (our chubbiest so far at this age). He lives in the enclosure with his mother, father and two sisters (his other two siblings were returned to China).

Oh, you want to join in our pandamania? Here's the link to the pandacam!

Now, hop on over to the My Town Monday blog to see what the others are posting about.

Yes, this is our adorable Yun Zi again!


Sources:
http://www.kidzworld.com/article/22507-introducing-yun-zi-the-cutest-panda-bear-cub-ever
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-giant_panda.html
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/ex_panda_station.html
the San Diego Union Tribune, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010