Red Panda
The Smithsonian National Zoo began breeding red pandas
(Ailurus fulgens) in 1972, when the first of
many litters was born. Over the following two decades,
careful husbandry and genetic and demographic management
helped build a breeding population that produced more
than 120 red pandas at the Zoo and the Conservation
and Research Center. In the early 1980s, the Zoo’s
red panda program became one of the first Species Survival
Programs (SSPs), a comprehensive inter-zoo management
collaboration that oversees the zoo breeding of endangered
and threatened species. In the early days of the program,
Zoo scientists also became concerned about wild red
pandas.
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Red pandas are declining over much of their range due to fragmentation and loss of critical habitat (mid-elevation, temperate hardwood forests in the Himalaya graced with a bamboo understory that provides virtually all of the red pandas’ food). For years, the Zoo has trained scientists and sponsored the research of field and zoo biologists in northeastern India, Nepal, and China. These researchers continue to learn much about red panda ecology, behavior, and distribution—and, most recently, have focused on how human use of forest resources and local attitudes toward wildlife affect red pandas.
ZooGoer 32(2)
2003. Copyright 2003 Friends of the National Zoo.
All rights reserved.
