Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park announced this week that they are celebrating the birth of a special baby!
Their much loved breeding pair of Red Pandas, Amba and Mo, became proud parents to a beautiful cub on 15th July.
And the cub arrived at the centre next to Cannon Hill Park just in time to celebrate International Red Panda Day (Saturday 19th September) – a day dedicated to raising awareness about the threat to Red Pandas in the wild.
The Red Panda, or “firefox,” is sometimes referred to as the “lesser panda” in deference to the better-known giant panda. It is also known as the “first panda” as western scientists described it 50 years earlier, and gave pandas their name.
Found in the mountain forests of Himalayas in Nepal, India, Bhutan, China amd Myanmar, Red Pandas are shy mammals and rarely seen. Their numbers in their natural habitat have halved over the last 20 years, with only around 2500 left in the wild.
Red Pandas spend over 55% of their time sleeping and are most active in the early morning and late afternoon, resting in trees to their energy in between.
The mother carries the cub for three months up until birth. Once born, a cub will spend around three further months safe in their nest. After three months growing in their mother, cubs are born into a nest made of twigs and grass.
For updates on Amba and Mo and their cub, follow Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park:
Tw: @bhamwildpark
FB: /Bhamwildlifeconservationpark
To find out more about red pandas and their conservation, visit the Red Panda Network website.
