Birthday Bash for Giant Pandas at Adelaide Zoo

Adelaide Zoo's giant panda duo, Wang Wang and Funi have celebrated their birthdays in style. Keepers treated them to a range of enrichment items to celebrate the big day. Funi turned 17 on August 23 while Wang Wang will celebrate his 18th birthday on August 31.

To mark the occasion the pair played with enrichment items made to an Asian food market theme. Wang Wang also played in a tutti frutti scented bubble bath.

“While this all looks and sounds like a lot of fun, for Fu Ni and Wang Wang enrichment is an opportunity for them to use their senses to carry out the same natural behaviours they would in the wild,” said Dr Phil Ainsley, Director of Adelaide Zoo.

“Giant Pandas have a very good sense of smell and so the herbs tucked inside the enrichment boxes allow the pandas to forage, snuffle and explore to find the source.

“Pandas also love to swim, so a bath is an opportunity to enjoy some water time. The scented bubble bath is also an opportunity to use their nose.

“While Giant Pandas mostly eat a diet of bamboo they do occasionally eat other foods. In the case of the birthday pair they were treated to some bamboo cake, apple, carrot and pear,” finished Phil. 

Fewer than 2,000 giant pandas live in the wild but their numbers have been increasing as a result of conservation efforts.

Wang Wang and Funi are part of the  international Giant Panda research, conservation and breeding program designed to preserve this vulnerable species. They came to Adelaide from the Woolong Giant Panda Research Centre, China in 2009.