Bamboo shipment gives giant pandas plenty to munch on at Shanghai Zoo

Getting bamboo for pandas was just one of the many problems overcome by Pei and his 300-strong team to keep life for the 5,000 animals in the zoo as smooth as usual.

Each day the animals consume more than 400 kg of vegetables, 250 kg of fruit and 650 kg of meat, as well as other staple foods.

"In addition to quantity, the unique habits of the different species required us to also ensure the quality and variety of food," said Zhou Ying, who is responsible for the animals' food supply.

Since the lockdown, Zhou and her colleagues have constantly been on the phone with different vendors and suppliers to coordinate food purchases.

"Despite the rise in food prices and unpredictable delivery time, we managed to cope with the problem with our large warehouse and cold storage," Pei said.

Apart from securing the food, ensuring enough manpower to handle the daily chores has been another headache for the zoo since March when the sporadic hot spots of the COVID-19 outbreak caused the sudden quarantine of residential compounds, stopping many animal keepers from coming to work.

Different zones have minimum requirements of personnel to ensure safety, and unfamiliar keepers might trigger an animal's stress reaction, according to Pei.

The elephant enclosure, for example, requires at least three keepers to tend, because elephants have volatile emotions, and keepers who are familiar with the animals know their specific habits and moods and can reduce potential risks.

"Many members of the Communist Party of China and young workers have taken the initiative to stick to their posts in the zoo," Pei said, adding that around 110 keepers have lived in the park since the lockdown.