3 Real Giant Panda Habitats! (Planet Zoo Inspiration)

Hello everyone, JustGord here and welcome back to another Planet Zoo real-life inspiration video and today we are looking at the giant panda. We only have three zoos to look at but I do want to cover them in full detail because as you can expect giant panda exhibits tend to be quite extravagant. So let's get started with the Zoo of Berlin and we're starting off at the entrance over here because I do feel like it's quite fitting to the theme of the giant panda. Even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the giant panda, I just wanted to include it because it's just an iconic thing and right as you get past the entrance in the distance you can see the little gazebo thing. It kind of leads you right to the entrance of the giant panda exhibit over here which is not my favorite, I will say. It is... The exhibit itself, the outdoor exhibit is actually quite nice. Let's start with that. So even though some of the fencing is a little bit on the cheaper side, I will say, the exhibit is quite nice. There's some nice rocks, there's cool climbing frames, but then you get to the indoor part and are you enjoying your view of the panda here? These reflections, man, they are awful. So we've got this very modern kind of building with the indoor exhibits of the panda, which are not that big. I do like the the rock walls over here and we got some nice views of the panda through the glass. From this sheltered area the reflections aren't as bad although still ever-present. But yeah, you do get some good views of them in here. As you can see, we have two separate indoor enclosures. That's something that's definitely necessary for panda. And yeah, we can see that this one just had their food delivered. There's a giant pile of bamboo in here. And what I do really like here is how you can kind of see into the outdoor exhibit as well from the indoor exhibit. There's a lot of visual consistencies between the viewing area and the exhibit. I really like this part where the kind of pebbles and stuff from the water feature over here move through the glass into the viewing area as well. And this enclosure just looks absolutely gorgeous from here. It's so naturalistic looking. There's great planting. You can also see big donation bin over there. Very important for such a crowd-pleaser of an animal. Another thing we could just barely see there were some people in front of it, but there was like one of those coin dispensers where you can get your collectible coins that I have way too many of. And yeah, more views of the outdoor enclosure here and a bigger climbing frame in the back there. So, just looking at the structure over here, you can see all the kind of green beams kind of mimicking bamboo holding up the roof. It's definitely a choice. I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of it. But yeah, that's kind of the indoor viewing. Let's move around the enclosure where you've got, you can move pretty much around the entire thing. You can view it from from the other side, but yeah, you can go around it. And yeah, here we got that gazebo that we saw earlier. Definitely a really cool structure. Not sure if that was built for the enclosure or if it was also already there and it's kind of part of the entrance. Not sure about that. But yeah, over here we got this big glass viewing point with another really nice water feature over here with all the rock. That just looks really, really awesome. We can just barely see the indoor building in the back. It's actually decently covered by all the foliage because yeah, I don't like looking at it. Another small climbing frame over here. And then as we move very much further around the back over here, you can see the indoor building from the back. There's like a whole backstage access here and there are a couple of enclosures behind as well for like deer and stuff. But this is a bit of a dead zone. And yeah, as we go further around you can see this really cool fence, which is around several points of the enclosure. Yeah, it's this kind of metal bamboo looking fence and it looks pretty cool. It's not used everywhere. At some points they just use regular mesh like you can see on the left over there. And there is also this V-mode, kind of really making sure the pandas are kept out. And yeah, over here you got a really cool viewing point with just an open view into the enclosure. But that was pretty much everything for Berlin. So let's move on to the next zoo, which is our Hans Dierer Park. And this is by far my favorite enclosure. Am I biased because this is the Dutch one? I don't know. I just think it's by far the best of all of them. They really went all out. They were like, pandas, yes, this will get us so many visitors. Let's just build a giant, it's not quite a temple, but just a giant Chinese-style structure over here. And just a beautiful enclosure around it. So we've got these two buildings, right? These are the indoor enclosures, as well as some other stuff on top. And then the outdoor enclosure, it just goes all the way around these enclosures. So even though, from some views, it might look a bit on the small side, because it's not very wide. It is a super long enclosure, so they can go all over the place. So we just saw some videos play about Fan Xing, which was the first baby panda born at this zoo in 2020. Yeah, a bit of bad luck for the zoo that their first baby was born during the pandemic, when they had to be closed and couldn't get any visitors from it. But this year, another baby was born, so we can go in for round two over here. But yeah, we've got an indoor enclosure. This is the one for the mother, Muwen, and the baby, Fan Xing, when they were still here. Currently, they've moved back to China, as tends to happen with the pandas, which are taken on loan from China and the whole panda politics thing, which I don't really feel like getting into. I just want to look at the enclosures. The main important thing to know about the panda politics is that it costs a lot of money to get pandas from China. And that's why you probably often see these extravagant enclosures, because you might as well invest in them then, right? So anyway, we're going all the way around the indoor enclosure. We just saw another glass viewing area from this walkway that is slowly sloping up, snaking around the building entirely. If we want, we can look over the side into the outdoor enclosure. But yeah, we're just making our way to the top over here. We can see every corner of the building has these emblems. Probably not. But yeah, we can see these buildings. And the right one over here has a completely different roof structure compared to the left one, which is really, really cool. It's not just a copy-paste. The left building over here also contains a restaurant. I don't have that much footage of it, because the last two times I visited this place, this restaurant was actually closed, which is a huge bummer, because now the only footage I have of it is this blurry, way-too-fast panning stuff, because I was afraid to film the people in here. But you can see the restaurant in all of its glory, a little bit at least here. The food here is so good, which is why I'm really upset that it's closed so often. But yeah, one time, it was so busy in the zoo that they actually opened up this upstairs area, which normally is only reserved for special events and groups. And now I was able to see it, which was really, really cool, because it looks so freaking cool. You can also see the service area for the staff down here. Yeah, really, really cool stuff. Further along, there is a hallway over here that connects the one building to the other. In here, you find the toilets and things like that. But it's just a really nice-looking hallway as well. And once before, like in the past, there were these planters over here, which look really, really cool. And this other furniture and the big fat panda over there. Really, really cool. But yeah, this connects to the other building of the other building. Impeccable description, me. And yeah, this connects to the gift shop over here. And those who have watched the most recent Kowali Zoo episode might recognize this gift shop a little bit. I may have taken some light inspiration from this one, aka I completely ripped it off. But yeah, more recently, there is also some non-panda merch in here, like red pandas and some koala stuff. But when I went here the first time, there was exclusively giant panda merch in here. There was nothing else to be found, which made me very upset from the lack of red panda stuff. But that has been rectified in recent days. So now there is a little red panda corner and some more red panda stuff. And the koala stuff, which makes slightly less sense to me, but I guess they're just like, Haha, we have koalas, so let's sell stuff. But yeah, you can see this was like a year ago. It was just a wall of panda stuff. And already this year, now there is some red pandas and some koala stuff in there. So they're diversifying a little bit here. I guess maybe the lack of diversity was hurting the sales just a little bit. But yeah, as we leave the gift shop, we snake around the other building again, where you can see the other outdoor enclosure. So this is the enclosure for the male. Just like in Berlin, there is separate enclosures for the male and female. Very important with pandas, because of course, they are very solitary animals. If you put them together outside of the breeding season, there will be fights and it will not go well. So breeding pandas is super complicated. So it's actually really cool that the zoo has already managed to get two babies out there. I'm not sure what Berlin's track record is. I did not read much into that. But yeah, anyway, as we come down here, we have a similar interviewing of the male's enclosure over here. And yeah, it's just very similar with all the beautiful murals, the things in the roof that's like sound dampening, but also kind of interesting looking. And then all the climbing frames, which they really do use a lot. They spend a lot of time up there. And not just because they put food up there, but also that other climbing frame. I guess it's just a very nice, comfy sitting spot for them, because I don't think this is the only time I've seen them up there. So yeah, those were the indoor enclosures and kind of the track along that. But you can also walk around the entire enclosure. First thing that's cool to note here is kind of the staff entrance that goes kind of down this ramp and has doors underneath there. In between the two buildings is this like common area where they can do the breeding, where there's also like the room where the mom takes care of the baby and like it's away from public. We could also see earlier next to that staff entrance, those coin machines again. Yeah, definitely a very popular thing to have coins of the pandas in your zoo. But what's really, really cool around here is this fence design. I think it's super neat and interesting. And some of it has these glass panels for like little kids or people in wheelchairs and makes it a lot easier for them to look through this fence into the enclosure. But yeah, the enclosure itself, as I said, it's actually really quite big because it goes all the way around this building. So that just gives it a lot of room over here. There's some shelters. There's some climbing frames. The trees do have anti-climbing protection on it. But yeah, that just makes sense. As we go even further along, this is the male enclosure. We can also see the door to the indoor enclosure is open. So they have just free reign. They can choose themselves whether they want to go in or out. Yeah, it is a very lovely enclosure. I think it's so cool. I don't mind the fact that it's not very natural. We're looking up against this building, but the building just looks so cool. It's the centerpiece. And that's not a bad thing in my opinion here. It's definitely really, really awesome. But that's going to be it for Owons. Next up is Paradisa. And I have a bit of a grudge against Paradisa because we are in the Middle Kingdom. We have buildings like this and this and this and this and this. And okay, that's actually the same building from a different angle. But even the toilets, even the toilets look like this. Yes, I recorded the toilets because they were so good looking. And then what does the panda enclosure look like? It's this! This is the first panda enclosure that you might encounter, depending on how you walk through the zoo, of course. But this is one that is closest to the entrance. And I know it's not bad by any means. It's a decent enclosure. But compared to all the stuff around it that is basically purely built for visitors, it just feels like there's such a disconnect here. And yes, I will say these enclosures were not meant to really be here as far as I know. Paradisa's baby pandas got born and they had to hold on to them for much longer than you normally would with giant pandas. And of course, you have to separate them from the parents at some point. So I guess that's why these enclosures got built. When I visited, they were also working on another one. I was told in the Formosan Black Bear video, in the comments, that this enclosure was not being built for the Formosan Black Bear, but for more panda space, basically. But yeah, even when we get to the actual panda enclosure, this is the gift shop. It's just a tent. It feels so temporary. We do, again, have the coin things. I will have point stuff out on top of just ranting. But yeah, there's these signs leading you to this area that are just these wooden post-op signs, you know. It all feels so temporary. Like, yeah, the pandas are alone. We'll have to get rid of them eventually. So let's not put too much effort in. Even though, here we are at their actual enclosure. And it is a lot nicer. I like it. It's very naturalistic. It's cool. It's got cool climbing frames. It's got a cool moat. Nice rock work. But again, just compared to the billion-dollar freaking buildings all around, it feels like there's a disconnect between visitor stuff and animal stuff. And that's what I feel like most of Paganiza. Over here, we're getting to the indoor area. And it's a cave with very... ...rock work. It is not great. It's very expensive, this place. I will say that still. Because for some reason, they thought it was necessary to fill the walls of these caves with actual amethyst geodes. That must have cost so much money. And it adds so little. Why? This entire cave, by the way, feels super empty. The viewing areas are really, really dark. It's really hard to see the animals in here. It's so weird. That's the only way I can describe it. Turns out, in the past, the gift shop was actually inside of this cave. Which makes a lot more sense as to why it feels so empty now, at least. Maybe having the gift shop in here was making it too crowded and not great for the pandas. I don't know. I am not a fan of this enclosure. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah, I don't have much else to say about it, really. It's not bad for the animals, necessarily. But it's just not... It's not what I would expect for a panda enclosure, just to put it that way. Especially when you've got all of this amazing architecture all around the zoo. Like, why could you do it there and not in the panda area? And not everything needs to be like Owlhounds. That's not what I'm trying to say either. It's cool that they tried doing their own thing. I just don't like it. But yeah, the enclosure is pretty nice, so take the inspiration from that. And I will try to hold back my Parida as I rant. Well, actually, I don't have to for much longer because we're almost done with the video anyway. And there is some education around here on these signs, which do look quite nice. But yeah, that's pretty much it. So we're getting to the big gift shop tent over here. I did not go inside because I did not intend on buying anything. I didn't want to go through these gates and not buy something. For some reason, it felt awkward. So I didn't. Anyway, that was it. That was Paridaiza. Weird, yeah. I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I feel negatively about it. Anyway, that's rant done. I'm going to sign off here. Hope you enjoyed and got some panda inspiration. I will see you in the next Real Life Inspiration video or whatever other video may come out first. Probably not a lot though. I'm pre-recording these for when I'm moving in October. And I think this video is already coming out when I'm like in the middle of moving everything. So definitely, definitely won't have any other videos around this time, I'm guessing. But who knows? Maybe. I'm going to sign off now because I'm just rambling. Bye-bye!