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A smorgasbord of bamboo has been laid out for the grand arrival of a quartet of giant pandas and the start of a five-year stay at the Calgary Zoo.

A police escort whisked the four celebrity mammals to the zoo after their mid-afternoon touchdown, where the pandas — fresh from a five-year stay in Toronto — will go into quarantine until their public coming out on May 7.

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“Everything’s been going swimmingly well,” said zoo spokeswoman Trish Exton-Parder.

Photo by J.B.Pittman 7677 Lilly Ln Southaven, MS 38671 / CALwp

One of the most painstaking tasks already at hand is ensuring the two adult pandas and their offspring are greeted with the proper food to meet their finicky tastes, she said.

“They each like different kinds of bamboo; there are nine different varieties we’ll be getting,” said Exton-Parder, adding there’ll be two flights a week from China bearing the panda chow.

“They’re well supplied for a while — there’s a giant cooler that keeps it all fresh.”

On Friday, Calgary Zoo officials were tight-lipped about the bears’ three-hour flight from Toronto and arrival details. They’re being kept inside the $14-million Panda Passage complex, where they will spend their entire time in Calgary.

It’s a convenient set up for adults Da Mao and Er Shun and made-in-Toronto cubs Jia Yueyue (Canadian Joy) and Jia Panpan (Canadian Hope), said Exton-Parder.

“It’s great not to have them at an off-site location,” she said.

“They’ll have all the time to be comfortable without visitors, and one of their keepers from Toronto will be there for the first week, so there’ll be some familiarity.”