Big birthday for giant panda

Today the Toronto Zoo is marking a very special occasion for a very special animal.

It’s panda-monium at the Toronto Zoo as giant panda Er Shun is celebrating her seventh birthday. One of only 300 pandas living in zoos and breeding centres around the world, it’s a very special occasion.

“We did a garden-themed party for Er Shun. We have some pinata flowers filled with treats. She also had a lovely floral cake that was made out of ice and fruit flowers,” said Vicki Hardstaff of the Toronto Zoo.

Er Shun is one of two giant pandas on loan from China. She and her breeding partner, Da Mao, are the only two giant pandas in all of Canada. They arrived at the Toronto Zoo last year and sometime in 2018 they’ll be relocated to the Calgary Zoo.

In panda years, Er Shun is in her early 20s. The zoo is selling specially-made stuffed pandas in her honour, and visitors are decorating food boxes, as well as making her birthday cards and wishes.

“I’m feeling really excited, like that I get to celebrate her birthday. I’ve always wondered if there’s separate panda years than human years because if it’s human years, I’d be older than Er Shun,” said Liam Keating, who was visiting the zoo.

“I made a wish. I wished that she had the best birthday ever,” said fellow visitor Jaden Forbes.

Another wish being made — at least by the zoo — is for Er Shun to get pregnant.

“They’re only receptive to breeding once a year, and it lasts for 48 to 72 hours, so that factor alone makes it very, very tricky to conceive, so we actually performed artificial insemination back in April,” said Hardstaff.

Da Mao is not old enough to breed, and it’s still too early to know if Er Shun is pregnant. For now, she’s content to have her bamboo cake and eat it too.

It’s extremely hard to determine if a panda is pregnant. If Er Shun is, the zoo will only know about 20 days before she gives birth. That’s because panda babies are so small — only about 100 grams — so it’s hard to see anything.

A giant panda is actually the smallest newborn relative to the size of its mother. The Toronto Zoo has a full-time reproductive physiologist and lab, so she’s in good hands.