Pandas have always been depicted as the cute and cuddly animal that only nibbles on the shoots of bamboos. But a recent discovery may have changed all that.
On February 24, a wild panda attack was reported in Leshan, Sichuan Province in China and the panda allegedly devoured a goat that belonged to the villagers, Bastille Post reported. Eh I thought pandas are all herbivore?
At approximately 10am, they claimed to witness the metre-long wild panda emerging from the mountain near Muping village to scavenge for food. To their surprise, the wild panda viciously devoured a goat in front of them.
After satisfying its hunger, the panda hung around for some 20 minutes before returning to the mountain where it came from.
The remains of the goat was captured on camera by the villagers after the panda left.
Source: Bastille Post
Source: Bastille Post
The officers from Mabian County Forestry Bureau who were alerted earlier rushed to the scene but the panda was gone. So they bagged some of the panda’s faeces back to the laboratory for analysis.
That same day, another giant panda was spotted in the same county but the animal was much more relaxed and was seen chilling among the bushes. It soon returned to the forest unharmed, Global Times reported.
Source: Bastille Post
The shocking discovery of a goat-eating panda has gone viral on Sina Weibo, a microblogging website that is akin to Facebook, with netizens hash tagging ‘Wild giant panda eating goat’.
“I thought pandas are naive and only eat bamboos, I didn’t expect them to be so fierce!” said a netizen.
“Looks like I’ve been wrong about panda all this while. I thought they only eat bamboo!,” commented another netizen.
While the story does sound fishy, but don’t be surprised to know that pandas are capable of doing so.
Responding to incident, deputy director of Sichuan Provincial Forestry Department, Gu Haijun said that although giant pandas are mostly herbivores, their evolutionary ancestors were actually meat eaters and this instinct still exists in modern days panda.
A quick browse through WWF.Panda.org revealed that giant pandas possess the digestive tract of carnivores. They would also occasionally hunt for rodents and small pikas although 99% of their diet consists of bamboos. Remember, they are from the bear family!
So guys, looks can be deceiving! Who would’ve thought a cute panda can brutally devour a goat!
Also read: Chinese Owner’s Dog Looks At Him Until He Falls Asleep, Later Finds Out Reason Why
