Life With Dogs: Naughty Panda Cubs Give Worker A Run For Her Money

By Chesney McDonald

Contributor at Animal Channel

Clearing leaves is a monotonous and tiring task as it is. And if we know anything abut baby Panda’s, it’s that they are notoriously clumsy, mischievous and just seem to want to have fun. Their curiosity and playful nature cause them to create havoc for anyone who may be in charge of them.

Nanny Mei, I guess that’s you!

Mei is a keeper at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The aim here is to assist the struggling giant panda population by facilitating mating and taking care of the young. Only relatively recently, in September of 2016 where the giant pandas downgraded from “endangered” status to “vulnerable”. This has been great news, but the population still needs the hard work of people like Mei.

…But after watching Mei attempting to rake their enclosure, we can see that this is not always as easy as you may think.

Mei can’t even get into the enclosure through the undulating ball of fluff that is the pile of naughty pandas swarming the gate.

Mei is going to have to get creative!

Using a trick straight out of an episode of Tom and Jerry, she throws her colorful broom over the fence to distract some of the cubs and draw them away from the gate. And it works! There’s not a lot to comment on their intelligence, but they sure are curious!

When the cubs move away from the door Mei is able to get in, but then she has a new problem…

Now she has to wrestle her broom back! One cub even pulls the head right off of the broom. Poor Mei hasn’t even been able to start her chores, because these little fluff-balls are such a handful.

Mei gets her broom back, but the HARD work is far from over.

When the cubs catch on to the basket full of leaves, a whole new can of worms is opened. As quickly as Mei can get the leaves into the basket, these cubs are messing around with it. They tip it over, jump into it, push it… their complete attention is fixed on playing with those leaves. Their determination is admirable.

Mei has to be one step ahead.

This is probably more of a two-person job, as Mei has to fill the basket with leaves WHILE she avoids the persistent cubs. For every few leaves she can get into the basket, she has to stop and dodge the chaotic paws of the wee pandas. They’re easier to avoid when one of them is too busy rolling around dizzily, but when they work together Mei really has her work cut out for her.

Source: Youtube Screenshot

Forget whack-a-mole, Panda Raking could be the next big arcade game.

Imagine having to work around two baby pandas who will stop at nothing to have fun with the leaves that you’re struggling to rake up. It would be great for your reflexes, and an even better work out!

Source: Youtube Screenshot