Endangered red panda born at Lisbon Zoo
He is dressed in red, has white mustaches and is already six months old. The new tenant of the Lisbon Zoo is a red panda cub (ailurus fulgens), an endangered species, as rare as it is curious. If you’re having trouble finding it in your new home, don’t forget to look in the treetops, as these pandas are mostly arboreal.
Classified as “endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a red panda population has registered a 50% decrease in recent decades from not belonging to its natural habitat, such as mountainous forests in Nepal, India, Bhutan, from China and Burma. The loss and fragmentation of its natural habitat, illegal trade and exploitation of forest resources are some of the corrections facing the species.
As the only member of its taxonomic family, an Ailuridae, the red panda – which often grows to the size of a domestic cat – has unique characteristics. For example, although it has a carnivorous digestive tract, it has omnivorous dentition and common eats meat, preferring bamboo, eggs, insects and berries. Like giant pandas, it has a developed wrist bone, which works like a thumb and is a great help in holding objects.
Having nature conservation as its main mission, the Lisbon Zoo assumes itself as a kind of “Noah’s Ark”, which preserves specimens of different species in order to avoid their extinction. Through its Conservation Fund, it also supports projects in natural habitats, to promote their recovery and retain the collection to which they are exposed.
Lisbon Zoo, Praça Marechal Humberto Delgado. Mon-Sun 10.00-18.00. €13.78 -€21.38.
+ This project wants to protect the Bonelli’s eagles in Greater Lisbon
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