Meat eating panda video

Meat eating panda video

Meat eating panda video. BEIJING: A camera at a Chinese nature reserve has spied a wild panda eating meat. Pandas spend most of their days eating bamboo.

Staff at the Wanglong Nature Reserve in southwest Sichuan province set up the camera after noticing dead animals with chew marks. It was not known if the panda had killed the animals.The Pingwu County forestry bureau says the panda appears to be healthy and strong. Conservation group WWF says only about 1% of a panda's diet is meat or plants that aren't bamboo.

The panda looked like he has been caught out helping himself to a forbidden snack. And perhaps this panda realized he had given away a secret kept under wraps for years as he is captured red-handed tucking into a dead antelope. It was previously thought the creatures were strictly herbivores.

According to the World Wildlife Fund China pandas have the digestive system of a carnivore and will eat meat if available, but adapted a long time ago to a vegetarian diet.

Because of this carnivorous digestive system the panda derives little energy and protein from consumption of bamboo so must eat as much as 14kg a day to stay healthy. It has taken millions of years living in bamboo forests for the panda to improve its ability to digest cellulose from bamboo.

It is unlikely the panda pictured killed the antelope and may have fortuitously stumbled across the animal in the forest.