About the Red Panda

Red pandas, like giant pandas, are bamboo eaters native to Asia’s high forests. Despite these similarities and their shared name, the two species are not closely related. Red pandas are much smaller than giant pandas and are the only living member of their taxonomic family.

Red pandas are endangered and are legally protected in India, Bhutan, China, Nepal and Myanmar. Their primary threats are habitat loss and degradation, human interference and poaching.

Researchers believe that the total population of red pandas has declined by 50 percent over the past two decades. It is probable that this decline will continue in the coming years. Red pandas are present in some protected areas throughout their range, including parks in Myanmar, Bhutan, India, Nepal and China. Despite regulations, livestock grazing, hunting and logging still occur throughout many of these protected areas.

Habitat loss is primarily attributed to logging, grazing livestock, demand for firewood, human encroachment and farming. The decrease in suitable habitat for red pandas has coincided with the increase in human populations throughout Asia; with human encroachment comes livestock, agriculture and dogs, all of which produce different threats to this species.

Herds of livestock can compete with red pandas for available bamboo leaves and degrade their habitat. Clearing land to make way for crops reduces available food and shelter. And domestic dogs can hunt or transmit disease, such as canine distemper, to red pandas. Additionally, fragmentation resulting from habitat loss has resulted in inbreeding, as red panda populations become increasingly isolated.

Poaching and illegal trade of red pandas has reportedly been on the rise and has also contributed to their population decline. The presence of red panda pelts, meat and other items has increased in the trade of illegal products, as have instances of live red pandas trafficked into the pet trade.

These threats are compounded by increasing climate change and natural disasters, inadequate enforcement of laws and regulations, and limited investment in red panda conservation by local governments.

Red pandas have bred with some reliability in zoos throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As they decline in the wild, growing and maintaining self-sustaining populations in zoos is a high priority as a hedge against extinction and to learn more about species biology.

Part of the difficulty in conserving red pandas relates to their unique habitat. These animals require a specific set of circumstances to optimize survival, including proximity to water sources, appropriate forest cover and altitude, and sufficient bamboo. As human encroachment continues to grow, these ideal habitats become increasingly more difficult to find. Bamboo grows unreliably in degraded habitats, which adds additional stress to the situation.

The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has been at the forefront of red panda conservation, with more than 100 surviving cubs born since 1962.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has prioritized four major categories of action for conserving red pandas: protect against habitat loss, reduce habitat degradation, reduce deaths of red pandas (through poaching and removing man-made threats) and improve awareness.

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Mother's Day: animal moms with their cute babies

Mother's Day should not  be limited to humans alone. Even animals take care of their youngs with the best they could. 

Red panda and cubs

Cat and kitten

Dolphin and calf

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The Red Panda

In the shadow of its more popular namesake.

When you hear the word ‘panda’, you’d probably think of the cuddly black and white bear of China, the Giant Panda. But did you know the original pandas are the smaller, Red Pandas?

The Red Panda is a raccoon-like animal native to China’s southwest border with the Himalayas—which also borders Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar (Burma). Living in the ‘Roof of the World’, Red Pandas require colder temperatures to be comfortable (between 17 and 25°C).

You’ve probably seen pictures and videos of Red Pandas recently in the Internet—resembling plump reddish brown raccoons but are playful like Giant Panda cubs. The Red Panda has been popularized in recent years by the Mozilla Firefox browser (although the Firefox logo is a red fox, not a red panda), and by the Kung Fu Panda movies as Master Shifu, the Kung Fu teacher of Po, Jack Black’s giant panda character.
Even though the Red Panda and the Giant Panda are not close relatives, they surprisingly share some characteristics.

• Both live in similar cold places (although their territories don’t overlap—the Giant Panda lives in the mountains of Central China).

• Both eat mostly bamboo (although both will supplement their diet—with other leaves, fruits, berries, birds’ eggs—even meat—whenever available).

• Both have false ‘thumbs’ (actually an overgrown wrist bone)—for the Red Panda, to aid in climbing trees; for the Giant Panda, as an aid in grasping bamboos.

• Both are recognized as “living fossils.”

These shared characteristics are probably the reason why the two pandas were seen as relatives at first, the Red Panda being discovered 48 years earlier than the Giant Panda. Nowadays, modern molecular genetic and classification techniques have identified the Red Panda as the sole representative of its own family group, the Ailuridae—it’s scientific name, Ailurus fulgens—“shining cat.” Meanwhile, the Giant Panda is now rightly recognized as a true bear (family Ursidae), but still shares a similar looking genus in its scientific name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca “black-and-white cat-foot.”

Unlike the Giant Panda, (which is very difficult to breed inside zoos), the Red Panda readily breeds in captivity.

While the Red Panda can be domesticated as a pet (there doesn’t seem to be any concerted efforts to do just this as of the moment), providing it with both bamboo and the cold temperatures it needs would not be easy for ordinary homes in the US and Europe—plus getting one into these countries would be difficult because of the Red Panda’s endangered status. But, for its survival, domestication might be the most viable option.

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