ATLANTA, Ga. — Panda fans who cannot make it to the zoo in person will soon be able to check in on Zoo Atlanta’s newest residents from a phone or laptop. The zoo said its PandaCam is coming back, this time trained on giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang.
The live camera returns through a renewed multi-year partnership between Zoo Atlanta and Cricket Wireless, which is presenting the feed. The zoo has not set a launch date yet and says more details are coming.
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang reached Atlanta on Sept. 27. They are getting a new home at the zoo, the Arthur M. Blank Panda Grove, which is scheduled to open to visitors on Thursday, Nov. 6.
Although giant pandas are bears and belong to the order Carnivora, they eat a vegetarian diet made up almost entirely of bamboo. Behavioral research has long been a core part of the zoo’s giant panda program, including studies of how pandas use scent and subtle calls to communicate in dense bamboo forest.
Zoo Atlanta has put more than $17 million toward giant panda conservation in China, its biggest long-term investment in protecting any wild species. Most of that money goes to projects for pandas in the wild, which today live only in six mountain ranges of southwestern China in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
Zoo president and chief executive Raymond B. King said the camera will let people follow the pandas no matter where they live. The feed is expected to show the bears’ daily behavior and milestones as they settle in.
Visitors who want to see the pandas in person will need to wait for the Panda Grove opening in November.
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