Meat-eating panda caught on camera

BEIJING — A camera at a Chinese nature reserve has spied a wild panda eating meat.

Pandas spend most of their days eating bamboo.

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Staff at the Wanglong Nature Reserve in southwest Sichuan province set up the camera after noticing dead animals with chew marks.

In the footage taken on Nov. 9 by an infrared camera, the giant panda is seen eating a dead gnu. It was not known if the panda had killed the animals.

The Pingwu County forestry bureau says the panda appears to be healthy and strong.

Conservation group WWF says only about 1 percent of a panda's diet is meat or plants that aren't bamboo.

China is set to launch its once-a-decade panda census, state media reported, as it tries to determine how many of the endangered animals live in the wild amid efforts to boost numbers.

Associated Press and AFP/Getty contributed to this story.