Why can giant pandas swim but they can still drown?

Recently, people found the body of a giant panda in a river in Fengtongzhai Town, Baoxing County, Ya'an, Sichuan, China, and it was suspected that it had drowned.

Wild giant panda drowned in river

This "murder" was discovered by a resident riding a motorbike in western Sichuan. While passing through Baoxing County, he suddenly saw something strange in the river, as if it was floating freely. At first, the motorcyclist thought someone else's puppy had fallen into the water so he planned to rescue it.

A giant panda drowned under.

After receiving reports from the people, the Baoxing District Forestry Department quickly arrived at the scene of the incident. As expected, a giant panda was found on a river in Fengtongzhai town and was reported to be a giant panda. is dead. Afterwards, staff from relevant departments arrived and recovered the giant panda's carcass. After preliminary examination, it was determined that this giant panda was an adult panda, had no external injuries and was most likely drowned.

However, further examination is needed to determine the actual cause of death. Therefore, the dead giant panda was sent to the China Giant Panda Conservation and Research Center for further analysis of the cause of death.

In fact, the fact that a giant panda drowned underwater may sound a bit bizarre, but in fact this is not the first time this phenomenon has happened. For example, in June 2014, a giant panda about 6 years old drowned near the gate of Gengda hydroelectric station in Wolong, Sichuan. According to staff at that time, the giant panda's death may have been related to the heavy rain in recent days.

Because giant pandas live in the mountains, when they come down from the mountain to drink water or go out to do activities, they are affected by heavy rain, accidentally swept away by flash floods and injured in the head, then fall into the river and drown.

In July 2018, a giant panda was swept into the river by a flash flood and drowned in Dayi district, Chengdu, Sichuan. However, this is a giant panda cub. After examination, it was discovered that there was still undigested panda milk in its stomach.

In May 2022, patrol officers from Huayang Administration Station of Changqing Branch of Shaanxi Giant Panda National Park found the carcass of a giant panda on a rocky beach in the central river Chaijiawan. After preliminary judgment, they concluded that this was a natural death, perhaps it was also related to drowning at that time.

Can giant pandas swim?

After witnessing so many drowning incidents of giant pandas, many netizens asked the question, can giant pandas not swim? In fact, giant pandas are like many other wild bears, they can swim, and many individuals even like to soak in water.

However , this swimming ability is only demonstrated in adult giant pandas , and young giant pandas lack both physical development and survival experience, so their swimming skills are very poor and can only cross shallow rivers. As adults, giant pandas are relatively good swimmers. But knowing how to swim doesn't mean you can't drown.

The giant panda is a mammal endemic to China, known for its distinctive black-and-white fur and diet consisting solely of bamboo.

When observing the habitat and living habits of giant pandas, we see that they mainly live in high mountains where bamboo grows well. In this type of environment, there are almost no large rivers and they are usually dominated by small streams and rivers. So giant pandas have no problem surviving in this type of environment. They can successfully cross this body of water just by wading.

In addition, 99% of the giant panda's diet consists of bamboo that is extremely low in nutrients, so they have developed a daily habit of spending a lot of time eating and resting. Basically, their swimming ability comes from innate instinct, but this swimming ability is not used regularly or practiced.

Giant pandas are facing extinction. There are only about 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild, and most pandas are bred in captivity in China.

As mentioned earlier, their habitat mainly consists of small creeks and rivers, so moving through such terrain will not be a problem. However, once there is heavy rain, flash floods occur, creeks turn into rivers, small rivers turn into large rivers, this is relatively dangerous for giant pandas.

Once the giant panda is swept away by flash floods and falls from a height, it can easily lose its ability to move and is at risk of being swept into the river and drowning. In short, when living in nature, all unexpected situations can happen. Even if giant pandas are naturally talented swimmers, there is still a possibility of drowning .