Local bamboo plantations in Europe have ensured that giant pandas in Belgium and the
United Kingdom have been fed with enough fresh bamboo during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to zookeepers.
Every week, there are about 1,000 kilograms of fresh bamboo delivered from a French bamboo plantation called La Bambouseraie to the Belgian zoo of Pairi Daiza where two giant pandas plus their three babies live.
Mathieu Goedefroy, spokesman of the zoo, said "It is very important for us to be assured that we always and at every time are able to provide fresh bamboo of the highest quality for our dear pandas. That's why we decide to buy this growing house. "
Since 1856, when a botanist Eugene Mazel began his first plantings by making species from all the world used to the plantation, La Bamhouseraie has developed into a park growing more than 240 varieties of bamboo now.
Of the 1,000 kilograms of bamboo delivered to the zoo each week, only a small part is eaten by the pandas. The other animals can consume the rest of it so that none is wasted.
The story is similar in the U. K.‘s Edinburgh Zoo, where the fresh bamboo has been shipped from the Netherlands. Jo Elliot, the animal collection manager at the zoo, said, "We have made sure that our stores have enough supplies. The pandas need their bamboo. Most of it gets shipped in from the Netherlands, and at the moment that is fine. We are still getting deliveries. "
In early May, Canada's Calgary Zoo said it would have to send back two giant pandas to China, since fewer flights, as a result of COVID-19, were causing a lack of bamboo for the pandas. An adult giant panda eats about 35 kilograms of bamboo shoots, or kilograms of fresh bamboo and bamboo leaves daily. There was no locally grown bamboo in Calgary, so supplies of bamboo had relied on the shipments from China.
"We have also contacted our workmates from Calgary, Canada," Goedefroy said. "We'll see if we could be of any help for them with our bamboo supplies. "
