Drusillas Launch Urgent Appeal For Bamboo

DATE: 16th June 2021

Drusillas Park are appealing for donations of bamboo after their hungry red pandas have nibbled their way through a little more than anticipated recently.

Red pandas Mulan and Maja, have demonstrated a very healthy appetite and have kept their hardworking keepers busily searching for more and more food. 

Keeping the red pandas satisfied with enough roots and shoots is an ongoing battle for the award-winning zoo in Alfriston. The duos appetite for bamboo is insatiable, with each individual consuming up to 2kg a day – that can be up to 20,000 leaves.

Head Zookeeper, Sophie Leadbitter commented: “Our own plantation has been struggling to keep up with the pandas’ enormous appetite, if any green fingered individuals out there have some fresh bamboo they can spare for our red pandas, we would be so grateful!”

Any bamboo is good, as long as it's tall, fresh and healthy plants. Black bamboo is a particular red panda favourite, and both Mulan and Maja enjoy small, leafy stems. It is really important the bamboo is cut freshly on the day it arrives at the Park, so Zookeepers can get it straight into storage and keep it fresh for our pandas. Drusillas Keepers would be so grateful if you can deliver to the Park.

Sophie Leadbitter said, “We grow our own in our grounds to supply the required bamboo but our gardening team have now had to ask us to stop ‘raiding’ their bamboo as there is very little left. We are therefore appealing to the public to help.”

If you would like to donate and help our pandas, please email [email protected].