A 10-week-old red panda has taken its first steps outside its nesting box at the Assiniboine Park Zoo.
“He’s out, he’s fluffy, and he’s adorable,” said Charlene Berkvens, director of animal health at the Assiniboine Park Conservancy.
The cub is the 36th endangered red panda born at the zoo since 2003. Berkvens says the zoo’s red pandas are part of a species survival program that helps manage its population through breeding.
“The main aim of them [such programs] is trying to maximize the genetic potential of the individuals that are in care, so that we, you know, avoid inbreeding,” she said.
“We try to make sure that we maintain enough of a population that it’s sustainable, so that we, you know, don’t get ourselves into a situation where there aren’t any any more.”
Berkvens says the red panda got its vaccines last week and is slowly starting to venture out of its nesting box but doesn’t take kindly to strangers trying to lift it up.
She expects the zoo will hold a naming contest for the cub sometime soon.
Its four-year-old mother, Mei Mei, has been quite protective, Berkvens says.
The Assiniboine Park Conservancy says the cub’s mother, Mei Mei, is very protective. (Submitted by the Assiniboine Park Zoo)
“This is her first opportunity to raise a baby,” she said.
“She loves them to bits. She’s very protective. For the longest time, we couldn’t get in there [the nesting box].”
Berkvens says visitors should count themselves lucky if they catch a glimpse of the cub.
“We definitely can’t guarantee it, and we’re not going to force them to come out…. he can come out if he wants,” he said.
“So, he’ll have to build up that confidence with them, with zoo visitors and stuff like that.”