Animals
Living outside their natural Chinese habitat can disturb giant pandas’ internal rhythms, a finding that could lead to better conditions in captivity. But some say pandas should not be captive at all.
ByJessica Taylor Price
Published September 21, 2023
• 6 min read
Giant pandas delight zoo-goers with their rolling, sliding, and joyful play—especially in the snow. But a new study reveals a potential challenge for the captive animals: When living in different latitudes from their natural habitats, zoo pandas are less active than they would be in the wild.
For an entire year, Kristine Gandia and colleagues observed 11 bears at five zoos via “panda cams,” which the facilities provide to the public as a window into the animals’ daily lives.
With this footage, Gandia estimated what a captive panda does each day. “Essentially we tried to get the whole repertoire of panda behaviors,” says Gandia, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom. “There was a lot of sleeping and a lot of bamboo eating.”
On the plus side, the team observed the pandas experienced three periods of peak activity per day, similar to how they act in the wild. Thanks to habitat restoration efforts in pandas’ native bamboo forests, China declared the species no longer endangered in 2021.
“It was surprising and pleasing that this pattern was seen in all zoos, regardless of the latitude at which the zoos were at,” says study co-author Hannah Buchanan-Smith, a psychologist at the University of Stirling and Gandia’s advisor.
But giant pandas living outside their normal latitude—specifically, 26 to 42° N—were more lethargic and likely to display abnormal behaviors, including pacing. Three of the study zoos were in mismatched latitudes and two were in the same latitude as native pandas, which tend to prefer temperatures in the 60s Fahrenheit.
“Often animals in captivity are less active than their wild counterparts, and this can have an adverse short- and long-term impact on health, affecting muscle strength, bone density, cardiovascular health, and energy expenditure,” says Buchanan-Smith.
The scientists agreed to keep the zoos that participated in the study anonymous, says Gandia, whose study was published this week in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. This condition meant “that more zoos would be willing to participate, making it more robust,“ though she declined to say why being anonymous would increase participation.
There are over 600 pandas in captivity worldwide, including in China, and many of those animals are in captive-breeding programs. However, such initiatives have not been very successful in reintroducing the animals into the wild in China, where they number around 1,800. (Read more about efforts to reintroduce pandas to the wild.)
At least 14 pandas have been released into China; 12 of them captive-bred, National Geographic reported in 2021. Of those, only nine survived. The only released panda to breed after reintroduction was an animal rescued from the wild.
Thrown off their rhythm
Like humans, pandas have circadian rhythms attuned to environmental cues. Also like us, pandas are diurnal, meaning they’re awake during the day and asleep at night.
Daylight and temperature, both strong environmental cues, influence everything from metabolism to breeding to activity levels, and messing with this internal clock can have consequences. People who work night shifts, for example, fight against their natural circadian rhythm, Gandia says, and this can cause long-term metabolic and health issues. (Get more information on our circadian rhythm.)
The team’s observations also showed the captive pandas acted differently depending on the season. For example, in the spring, an increase in temperature likely communicates to wild pandas that it’s time to migrate to other parts of the mountain to access new bamboo shoots and mate.
During springtime, Gandia noted an abnormal behavior in the captive pandas at mismatched latitudes, such as pacing around the enclosure, which were also sometimes linked to sexual activity.
“One of the funniest sexual-related behaviors for pandas is a handstand,” she says. “The males will do a handstand and urinate. It’s a way of competing with other males.”
Witnessing mating behaviors alongside pacing may mean captive pandas “are trying to express these behaviors as they would in the wild when they’re migrating.”
The consistent schedule of when captive pandas eat may also affect their circadian rhythm. In the study, their second most common abnormal behavior was standing on two feet near the door, anticipating food. This was also accompanied by pacing.
Gandia adds that a zoo’s outdoor temperature markedly influenced the pandas’ energy levels. For instance, pandas kept in warmer environments with less daylight seemed to be more lethargic.
The study did not examine the health of the captive pandas, but that is a topic for future study, says Gandia.
No match for the wild?
Gandia hopes her research can lead to captive environments that better mimic what pandas experience in the wild. For instance, “we are also sending the individual zoo data to each zoo so that they understand how their pandas behave compared to others.”
For instance, to match captive and natural environments, zoos could provide pandas with daylight and temperature cues like those they experience in nature, as well as give the animals a choice of habitats with differing temperatures.
Ultimately, Gandia says that zoos boost species conservation efforts, as well as public education and awareness, but she recognizes that improvements need to be made.
“Zoos are really trying to make an effort to improve conditions and continuously find new ways to help their animals be comfortable,” she says. (Read more: Is breeding pandas in captivity worth it?)
Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, says improving the lives of pandas in captivity is obviously a good thing, but that he’s not surprised by the recent study’s findings.
Pandas should not be kept and bred in zoos, he says, and this research provides another example of why.
“No matter how hard they try, [zoos] can never provide what’s species-normal for them. Captive pandas aren’t ‘ambassadors’ for their wild relatives.”
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