A Giant Panda’s Life Cycle

by Annika and Joe 

The life cycle of a giant panda.  From birth to adult.  The baby grows up to be the adult and then the adult gives birth to the baby and the cycle starts over again.

A panda’s average life span in the wild is 14-35 years but if the panda is in captivity it could live up to 30 years old. Female pandas mature when they get to around 5 years old and males usually mature when they are around 7.  When a female wants to mate it makes a barking sound and when a female is done mating, and if the male is on their territory the female will chase the male off her territory or the female will run away. Sometimes if more than one male shows up the female will climb a tree and the males will fight each other and the one that wins the fight gets to mate with the female. 

When baby pandas are born, they weigh 0.25 pounds, or 4 ounces. At birth, a cub is about 6 inches long. A cub will fully open its eyes at around 6 weeks old. At 10 days old a baby panda will grow some black fur. At 1 month old it will grow some more black fur. When it is 40 days old it will open its eyes halfway. At 50 days it will open its eyes all the way. When it is 70 days old it will start climbing a little.   When the baby panda is 3-4 months old it will begin to walk, and will weigh about 15 pounds, and its fur is grown all the way in. 

In the wild, there are only about 1900 pandas left.  The mother panda will raise the baby on its own without the male. A mother panda will usually have 1 or 2 babies at a time. Panda cubs will stay with their mother until they are about 18 months old. The first few weeks after the mother panda has mated, it will usually stay in the den with the baby for about 3 weeks.

Poaching is one of the many threats Giant Pandas face in their life in the wild. The pandas starve when people cut down bamboo to make tables, chairs, etc.  Jackals and leopards are a few of the wild predators that could consider a panda food. Some people poach pandas for their fur.

A Leopard advancing on a Giant Panda

Life Cycle Of The Giant Panda

By Dylan Rosoff and Colleen Zeugin

(A baby panda being born under the bamboo by Dylan)

A baby panda and its mom