Vegetarian Bear

I've spent a lot of my time in Beijing grading papers, but now and then we take time to do something fun. Yesterday, we went to the Beijing Zoo.

They're shifting from using cages to exhibiting animals in settings resembling their natural habitats. Of course we spent time in the panda exhibit. These beautiful black and white animals, native to Southwest China, are now an endangered species because their food supply is being destroyed as China develops. Pandas eat massive amounts of bamboo, and the forests are being cut down.

While pandas look much like bears, Chinese naturalists do not consider them as such, for they are completely vegetarian.