It is early dawn and you look up into the trees. You see a cat-sized animal jumping from branch to branch. A white nose, dark brown eyes with dark brown around them looks at you. A striped tail hangs down. You think it is a raccoon … but not if you live in Burma or Nepal. Instead, it is a Red Panda, a distant cousin to the Giant Panda. The Red Panda is also known as the Lesser Panda, a Cat Bear or a Fire Fox. It lives in the Himalaya Mountain at or above elevations of 3,000 feet. It can live for twelve to fourteen years while they seem to live a shorter time in captivity.

This three to eleven pound animal eats the tender shoots of the bamboo plant. They dine on berries, fruits, nuts, small rodents and birds if bamboo can’t be found. It uses a long special wrist bone called a radial sesamold-like thumb to hold the bamboo tree as it eats. The male Red Panda lives alone most of the time. His territory often overlaps with several females in the wild. They mate during the months of January to March. The female finds a rocky hole to give birth after one hundred thirty days. Imagine being one of four navy bean-size babies that open their eyes about eighteen days later.

The Red Panda is protective of her young. She’ll stand on her hind legs, swipe her paws in the air, hiss and snort. If you see this happen, you should move away as quickly as possible.

Red Panda babies live with their mothers for the first ninety days. During this time, the mother Red Panda teaches her babies how to find food and a warm shelter to live in. She shows them what they can do to protect themselves.

After 90 days, the young Red Pandas leave the nest. They are fully grown at one year. As an endangered species, the Red Panda has few natural enemies. Besides wild dogs, snow leopards and the yellow-necked marten, man is one of the biggest threats to their survival. As more and more land is cleared by man for his own use, the female Red Panda can find less food and forests/land to raise her young.

As with many endangered species, scientist have been working together to keep this gentle creature from becoming extinct. The scientist study the animals in captivity to find out about those that live in the wild to live longer.