Vic: Melbourne zoo successfully breeds red pandas

AAP General News (Australia)
04-06-2000
Vic: Melbourne zoo successfully breeds red pandas

By Martin Heymann

MELBOURNE, April 6 AAP - Melbourne Zoo today showed off its rare baby twin Nepalese
Red Pandas, the product of an ongoing breeding program.

The twins are the first Red Pandas to be born in Melbourne, although the zoo has exhibited
the species for more than 25 years.

Since their birth in December, the still unnamed pandas have been kept out of the public
eye, but it's expected they will be shown more as they grow older.

"They're slow developers compared to most carnivores, and their mother has been very
protective of them," senior keeper Paul Whitehorn said.

The births are an important contribution to the international breeding program for
the highly endangered Red Panda, a native of Himalayan bamboo forests.

At the moment, 97 zoos and almost 200 Red Pandas are participating in the breeding program.

The parents of the twins were both imported from other zoos, the mother, Fingalila,
from Sydney's Taronga Zoo and the father, Burmah, from Atagawa Zoo in Osaka.

They've been living together in Melbourne since November 1998.

The zoo is hopeful that the pandas will continue to breed.

AAP stu/jlw/ah

KEYWORD: PANDA (WITH PIX)

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