Giant pandas bite back at manhandling keepers in China
A breeding centre for giant pandas in southwest China said keepers were simply trying to prevent two of the animals from escaping when they repeatedly dragged and slammed the pandas into the floor of their pen earlier this month.
The incident was recorded and posted online by a visitor to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province on July 12, Chengdu Business Daily reported on Monday on its Weibo account.
The visitor, only identified as “Yixilan”, said the pandas were slammed to the floor many times.
In the 81-second clip, two male staff members drag the young animals and throw them to the floor as they try to leave the pen through a door.
A spokesman for the centre said the keepers were trying to stop the pandas from getting out of the pen and the staff were injured by the animals.
One of the staff members involved said the pandas were extremely excited that day.
“They scratched our arms and bit us and this was not captured [on the footage],” he was quoted as saying.
He said the pandas attacked two other colleagues who had to go to hospital to get injections.
