International Red Panda Day

With the decline of available opportunities to live and thrive in their natural habitat,Red Pandasare struggling. International Red Panda Day hopes to encourage people to learn about these adorable creatures and help save the biome in which they live.

Red pandas are native to the Eastern Himalayas and can sometimes still be found roaming there. These animals spend most of their lives in trees and even sleep aloft. When foraging, they are mostly nocturnal but they also forage in the gloaming hours of dusk and dawn.

Due to the encroachment of human activity and expansion, these rust-colored creatures are experiencing a loss of nesting trees and bamboo, leading to a decline in the population. With less than 10,000 in the wild efforts are doubled every year to help these little firefoxes!

Red pandas are smaller than many people expect, since their name is often associated with the giant panda. In fact, these little creatures typically only grow to about the size of a house cat, though their big, bushy tails add an additional 18 inches to their size. Red pandas have a taste for bamboo but, unlike their larger relatives, they eat many other foods as well—fruit, acorns, roots, and even eggs. Like giant pandas, they have an extended wrist bone that functions almost like a thumb and greatly aids their grip when climbing.