As I was flipping through some old pictures the other day I came across photos taken at the best Giant Panda encounter I’ve ever had, which I thought I would share with you today. It was at the fabulous San Diego Zoo a few years back, when I had at least 15 minutes to study and watch the pandas in an extremely up close and unobstructed fashion.
Giant pandas are a type of bear with typical black and white markings that you see in these photos, and about the size of a chubby man. Pandas are extremely cute and a symbol of China. They are largely endangered because their territory has shrunk and they seem to have little desire to reproduce. Their diet consists primarily of bamboo, which was provided in abundance to them in this enclosure.
Not to be outdone in the cuteness department is the red panda, a resident of China and the Himalayas. It’s much smaller than the Giant Panda and more closely related to skunks and weasels than to bears.
