Pandas and Bamboo Flowering

There are many kinds of bamboo in China. Giant pandas mostly eat 10 different kinds, but they can eat 40 different kinds. Because pandas are carnivores, their digestive systems digest bamboo very inefficiently—only 20% of what they eat is actually used (against 60% of grass by a cow, for example). This means that they have to eat a lot (about 20 kg a day) and for a long time (they spend 11–14 hours a day eating).

    The bamboo has a curious life-cycle. A bamboo plant lives for 80–120 years, and only flowers once. When it does this, it makes its seeds and then dies. And a whole bamboo forest does this at the same time. It then takes about 10 years for the new plants to grow up to a size which the pandas can eat.

    In the past this was not a problem because pandas moved to another bamboo forest. Now, however, because of habitat fragmentation, because of human activity (farming, habitation, population growth) pandas are unable to move easily, and so they are likely to starve to death.