This blog is devoted to the media- and social media-savvy practice of celebrating birthdays at zoos around the world. This, my dear blog readers, is marketing genius. Tell me you don’t want to smile when you see, for instance, this one-year-old panda cub’s chubby birthday face:

In looking at images of this party, I noticed tons of people gathered in Singapore’s National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur to gawk at the panda party! Although in Time’s video Liang Liang is completely uninterested in her cake, the 10-year-old shows more interest in the Wall Street Journal slide show.
Yes, I did just name Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal covering the birthday parties of pandas in Malaysia. Still doubt the animal birthday party’s appeal as good press for global zoos?

The Adelaide zoo also celebrated a double panda birthday party this month:

A trio of panda cubs devoured frozen cakes made of diluted juice and flowers made of fruit at the National Zoo in DC earlier this month, too.

Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, giant pandas were treated to ice lollies of mushed up apples and water frozen on bamboo sticks.

Don’t worry, it’s not only pandas who enjoy birthday treats at the zoo!

A zoo in Utah this month feted its elephant Zuri’s seventh birthday with a Star Wars-themed birthday….because Zuri must be a big fan of the series and dreams of taking a tusk to the evil Count Dooku. The zoo posted a Facebook live stream too.

Less recent zoo birthday fun includes:

A hippo in Thailand turning 42!

 

Tasmanian Devils at the Australia Zoo!

And as I am a particular fan of the bears at the zoo, I will end with this polar bear birthday party in Munich.

The best part is seeing the images as the traffic cone becomes an interesting toy — maybe like a lampshade at a holiday party?