The Smithsonian National Zoo pulled out all the stops for the first birthday of Bei Bei, the latest addition to the zoo’s growing family of giant pandas. To mark the occasion, the facility’s nutrition department spent two weeks crafting a massive 150 pound cake made out of fruits and frozen juice for the young cub, topped off with a giant number one.
The cake was moved into the panda enclosure earlier this Saturday where it could be shared with the rest of Bei Bei’s family, which includes his 3 year old sister Bao Bao, his 19 year old dad Tian Tian, and his 18 year old mom Mei Xiang. In the footage above you can see Mei Xiang enjoying her son’s birthday cake while Bei Bei shies off to the side. These birthday parties are really more for the adults during the first couple of years, anyways.
We’re just glad pandas are interested in cake at all. Pandas aren’t exactly renowned for having a powerful survival instinct. China’s national bears have been dwindling in numbers for centuries due to a general disinterest in procreating. It’s not a problem you see in many other species. If a panda bear isn’t interested in breeding, what else might it turn its snout up at?
Fortunately there’s hope for pandas yet as we now have confirmation that they’re cool with cake. Cake is pretty much number two on the list of things all living creatures should enjoy, so we’re glad the species isn’t completely backwards on everything.
You can take a look at what the panda family is up to on the Smithsonian National Zoo’s livestream feed of their enclosure. For more info on that delicious looking cake, check this out: