Nutrition
Bamboo accounts for 99% of a Pandas diet; they occasionally eat other vegetation, fish or small animals but prefer bamboo. Bamboo is not very nutritious so they need to eat 12 hours every day to get enough to sustain a healthy Panda. They only digest one fifth of what they eat, the shoots and leaves are the most valuable part and to stay healthy Pandas have to eat 15% of their body weight in the 12 hours they are eating per day. Of the many species of bamboo only a few grow at the high altitudes where Giant Pandas live. A Panda should have at least 2 species where it lives or it will starve. Pandas used to move easily between mountaintops but because of increased numbers of people living in these areas Pandas are shy and don’t go near people. This makes them very restricted. When bamboo dies off naturally in one area Pandas starve to death rather than venture to other mountains because of the human contact.