Who is this Lesser (aka Red) Panda?

I have returned from China – a place where government censorship has prevented me from updating my blog. I will post just a few things in the next few days before I am off for polar bear season soon. To start – well its seems people know of the Giant Panda bear, the cute, furry, black and white species that gave rise to what is probably the world’s most famous conservation organization, the World Wildlife Fund. But few know of the Lesser Panda, or otherwise known as the Red Panda species. Just as cute, just as furry, and likely just as endangered, the Lesser Panda is no less of a species deserving of a blog!


Tough to track in the wild, the Lesser Panda is a species to see at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCP), Chengdu, China. It is easy for me to see how this small animal might help herald the conservation efforts of the Giant Panda - an issue in my opinion that should be carefully debated.

Showing off its pretty fur, I see this little animal captivate the attention of onlookers around me at the CCRCP even though it is barely engaging in any kind of active or exciting display. There is something witty in its eyes though, and something cunning. It is of the sort that you see when you catch a raccoon red handed in your garbage as he or she is scattering it around for all your neighbours to see the next morning.

Similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda’s genetic lineage is confused and arguable. This little animal, comparable in size to a large raccoon, has bounced back and forth in its phylogenetric tree and is now considered to be in a family of its own. Although not much really to do with a cat as its latin name might suggest; it translates to“shining cat”, and the animal species doesn’t have much to do with bears either. Unfortunately preferring habitats similar to the Giant Panda, the Lesser Panda is dependent upon the highland forests of China. This species searches the remaining patches of forests to satisfy a diet of bamboo. Worldwide, the abundance is thought to be in the range of 36,000 to 75,000; indeed there is not much in the way of confidence in those numbers!