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By THERESA REYNOLDS
Rappahannock News Special Writer
Bamboo growing in the backyards of several Washington homes has been harvested for endangered species at the Conservation and Research Center of the National Zoo near Front Royal.
Most of the bamboo used by the center’s red pandas as food and by the rare birds as nesting cover is donated to the zoo by landowners who have difficulty controlling its rampant growth.
Usually associated with Asian woodlands and fields, tasty young bamboo,, is the favorite of the little red pandas who inhabit the center.
“It’s their food of choice,” said Anne Eagan, a center employee.
Bamboo has unusual growth patterns, and that peculiarity has contributed to the scarcity of pandas — both giant and red — in the wild.
All bamboo of the same species throughout the world will bear seed and die at the same time. So, until the seed grows into a plant worth eating, pandas in a particular region will be without their staple. Other items in their diet — birds, eggs, blossoms and berries — are much harder to find. Also, their digestive systems are dependent on bamboo to supply tremendous fiber requirements. In fact, bamboo has been so vital to panda life through the centuries that the animals have a special wrist movement for bending the stalks and a unique way of stripping the stalks with their teeth.
No one remembers how the Washington bamboo got started. The plant, really a type of giant grass, is native to America, although not to this region. Some town folks
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