China’s panda bears are settling nicely into their Canadian habitat ahead of their much-anticipated public debut this weekend, the Toronto Zoo says.
A group of dignitaries, politicians and media members were given a sneak peek Thursday of five-year-old Er Shun and her four-year-old mate Da Mao. The furry ambassadors’ public exhibit kicks off Saturday.
“They’re doing really, really amazing,” Maria Franke, the Toronto Zoo’s curator of mammals told Canada AM Friday. “We’ve had the time to let them get used to the habitat before we’ve unveiled them to the public.”
The pair will remain in Canada for a decade, spending five years in Toronto and five years in Calgary, at an approximate cost of $1 million a year.
Franke said the zoo provides each of the two pandas 50 kilograms of bamboo daily. Of that, they each consume about 20 kilograms.
About 98 per cent of the pandas’ diet is bamboo.
“They’re quite picky eaters, so they discard half of what we give them and they just kind of smell it, and if that piece smells good then they’ll eat it and if not, they’ll discard it and pick up another piece,” Franke said.
In March, the giant Chinese pandas landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport from Chengdu, China onboard a FedEx plane dubbed the Panda express. They were greeted by excited officials and politicians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper who described the pair as a “symbol of peace.”
Franke, who has seen the pair daily since their arrival, said the public’s fascination with pandas can be attributed to their status as a symbol of endangered species, and their physical attributes.
“I think we’re really fortunate because not a lot of zoos have pandas,” Franke said.
The last time the Toronto Zoo hosted pandas was in 1985.
