For my birthday, I was treated to an adoption of Ember, a red panda at Shepreth Wildlife Park and last week, I went to see her! As you may know, red pandas are my all time favourite animal and I've been slightly obsessed with them since I first saw one, my love growing rapidly when I got to feed a pair of them at Paradise Wildlife Park and now even stronger that I have a very strong affection for Ember (and her sister, Sundara). Just look at them!! (Left: Ember, Right: Sundara) So apparently Ember is really clumsy and has fallen from a tree once or twice (no harm done cause they're a massive bundle of fur) so I think she's a great match to me - I'm always tripping over myself! And Sundara is very, very food orientated. We were able to watch some training taking place which is done to give 'pretend' injections and for crate training in case they need to go to the vets etc so that it's much less stressful. They were both brilliant at this which is great to see! Red pandas are beautiful creatures and the only relation they have to the giant panda is that they both used to be carnivorous and over evolutionary time, they have switched to being a bamboo eater (the meaning of nigalya ponya in Nepalese). However, they do occasionally still eat meat so are still classed as carnivorous. The red panda is actually more closely related to racoons (the resemblance is uncanny from their tails). So it might surprise you, but the red panda was actually discovered well before the much more well known giant panda, 48 years before in fact. The red panda is on the red list of endangered species with numbers still decreasing. It genuinely upsets me that this is the case and I think more information needs to be in the media about these beautiful creatures. But I guess I could say that about a lot of species! Red Panda Network do so much work in the conservation of them and work closely with Shepreth Wildlife Park in their conservation. I'm a bit early in telling you about this event but on September 16th 2018, it is international red panda day so I urge you to donate for this event or visit a local zoo (especially Shepreth) on this day because its for such an amazing cause and it will be great fun! I'll do another post soon to tell you of some other events in 2018 that I think would be worth visiting in the UK, particularly in the midlands. For now, enjoy some more photos of Ember and Sundara. ©
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