Brno Zoo has been waiting for a new female red panda since April 2018, when the previous female bear died. Six-year-old Oshin arrived from Poland at the beginning of September, ready to mark International Red Panda Day last weekend. Photo credit: Zoo Brno.
Brno, Sep 23 (BD) – Huan, Brno Zoo’s male red panda, has been living alone since April 2018, when his companion Pandora died of an aggressive form of cancer. Now he has finally been joined by Oshin, a six-year-old panda who was born in Belgium in June 2013 and later moved to Lodz Zoo in Poland. She was transported to Brno at the beginning of September, where she had a day of rest before being introduced to Huan.
At their meeting, the two pandas were both wary; initially they did not approach each other and just watched from a distance. Over the next few days they became much more active, sometimes sleeping next to each other and other times at the far side of the enclosure. Both pandas are still cautious and their convergence is expected to take several months.
This meant that there were two pandas at the zoo for International Red Panda Day, which took place for the tenth year on Saturday, and was marked at Brno Zoo for the third time. Visitors to the zoo were invited to five locations around the site where they could learn interesting facts about the lives of red pandas and their ecological status. The highlight of the day was a celebration of Oshin’s arrival, with a feeding time with commentary at 11am.
Michal Vaňáč, a spokesman for the zoo, explained more about red pandas: “Despite its name, the red panda has little to do with the great panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). The giant panda is related to bears, while the red panda is a separate family of small pandas (Ailuridae). The red panda (Ailurus fulgens) reaches a length of 50-60 cm, with the tail approximately the same length as the body. It weighs from 3 to 6 kg. It has a long thick coat that is tinted from red, reddish brown to chestnut color. It inhabits the mountain forests of the Himalayas in Nepal, India, Myanmar, Bhutan and China, and can live up to an altitude of 4800 meters.”
Get the news first! Subscribe to our daily newsletter here. Top stories of the day in your mailbox every morning.
