Bei Bei back in China, but can Washington’s home-grown panda get used to the food?
- US-born cub chows down on local bamboo but rejects wowotou, a cake made with soybeans, corn, rice, calcium powder, oil, eggs and sugar
- Bei Bei in good mental and physical health after 16-hour trip, keeper says, but still doesn’t respond when called in Sichuanese
Bei Bei is getting used to life in China. But like many Americans on their first trip to a far-flung foreign country, he is struggling with the food and the language.
The giant panda cub, born and bred at the National Zoo in Washington, nevertheless is rapidly acclimatising to his new environment. He is in a good mental and physical state after his 16-hour journey, said Su Lingxiao, a keeper at the Bifengxia Panda Reserve in Sichuan province, the bear’s home for the next few months at least.
The Washington native arrived in his ancestral home on a special FedEx Boeing 777 nicknamed the “Panda Express” on Wednesday night, and he was transferred to the base in the early hours of Thursday morning. He was initially reluctant to come out of his cage, a 360kg (800-pound), custom-made steel and Plexiglas crate.
“After patient guidance, communication and consolation, and under the temptation of food, Bei Bei relaxed and bravely stepped out of his cage into the quarantine area,” the Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda wrote on its WeChat social media account.
He was anxious at first.
“We saw him pacing in his small enclosure or climbing the handrail, which showed his nervousness,” Su told China News Service.
