Did you know that Pandas are Carnivores? Yes, they are! Although their main diet consist of leaves, shoots, and stems of bamboo, their digestive system remains as carnivores which they inherited from their ancestors.
Just like humans, Pandas can’t digest cellulose. Cellulose is food for the herbivores like horses and cows. Herbivores have microorganism in their gut that can help them digest cellulose. Cellulose is a basic structural component of a plant that is composed of complex carbohydrates. Despite having their inherent inability to digest cellulose, Pandas chose to be herbivores and tried to adopt this lifestyle for at least three million years. They have adjusted to their plant diet by feeding almost 10 to 16 hours a day and eliminating their waste frequently up to 50 times a day.
Lifestyle change is a tough choice and Pandas are amazing when it comes to embracing their dietary alternative.
I think Pandas are just too gentle to hurt other animals. They do have the strength and size to easily catch prey, but they have chosen to live in peace with other animals around them.
Did you know that there is Panda Diplomacy? Yes, there is! The Panda is native to South Central China and the Chinese government used few of their pandas as a gift to other countries such as the US and the United Kingdom.
Later on, the Chinese government turned it into loan instead of a gift. They make the other countries pay a good amount of money in exchange for the pandas.
The US paid $50,000 per panda per month in 1984. The loan got modified into an annual term, making the US pay one million dollars yearly.
The very first Panda that arrived in the US in 1936 is Su Lin. She was captured by a fashion designer named Ruth Harkness.
Ling-ling and Hsing-Hsing were the two pandas gifted to the US during President Nixon’s office in 1969 and 1979 respectively.
Diplomacy is a skillful management of state affairs according to the Oxford Language dictionary. It can also be the art of dealing with other people sensitively and effectively.
We need to practice diplomacy to have a harmonious relationship with others. We don’t need to buy someone a panda to show diplomacy. We just need to learn how to respect others.
Poem by Salvacion Roselle Reyes
Photo credit: Adobe Creative Cloud Express