Panda eats goat in Sichuan

A wild giant panda attacked and ate a goat on Wednesday in Leshan, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, the Sichuan-based Chengdu Business Daily reported Saturday.

The meter-long panda was spotted by locals climbing down from a mountain near Muping village and wandering for 20 minutes before it attacked a goat.

Pictures taken by a local showed the bloody bones of a goat at the scene of the attack. The goat belonged to another local.

Employees of the Mabian County Forestry Bureau traveled to Muping after receiving a report of the attack and collected some of the panda's excrement.

That same day, another wild giant panda was spotted in Leshan's Ebian county, however this animal was more relaxed and was reportedly spotted relaxing in some bushes.

The local forestry bureau clarified that the two giant pandas have returned to nearby forests and are in a good physical condition.

There are estimated to be over 1,800 wild pandas in China, according to data released by China's Forestry Bureau in February, 2015, Chinanews.com reported in June, 2016.

The hashtag "Wild giant panda eating goat" has attracted 1.75 views on microblogging platform Sina Weibo, with many netizens expressing surprise at learning that pandas can eat meat.

"I thought pandas are naïve and only eat bamboo, I didn't expect them to be so fierce," net user "Song" wrote on Sina Weibo.

Although giant pandas are now mostly vegetarian, their evolutionary ancestors ate meat also and this instinct still exists in the modern panda, deputy director of the Sichuan Provincial Forestry Department Gu Haijun told news portal scol.com on Saturday.

Many netizens also expressed concern over who would compensate the villager for the loss of his goat.

A Sichuan panda breeder from the Giant Panda Protection and Research Center had his arms and legs seriously injured on December 17, 2016, by a captive-bred panda, Xi Mei, that was receiving training before being released.