Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time. With an incurable sweet tooth, this mammal spends hours feeding on tender bamboo shoots. While it has a predominantly plant-based diet, it is a carnivore, occasionally eating eggs, insects and small birds. Meet the red panda (Ailurus fulgens). It has a unique ruddy coat, ringed tail and a laid-back demeanour. It is not much of a traveller and stays within a short home range of two to three kilometres. There are two species of red pandas — the Himalayan red panda (Aurilius fulgens fulgens) and the Chinese red panda (Aurilius fulgens styani). The two species are distributed in the eastern and north-eastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests and the eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests, located in China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and northern Myanmar. The red panda faces multiple threats ranging from habitat loss to illegal trapping and poaching, as well as snaring in traps set for other animals. While red panda related crimes are at a relatively low level in India compared to Nepal, experts advise threat assessment, population estimations, boosting community conservation initiatives, building on red panda crime database and creating DNA databases at regional levels. In Nepal’s Taplejung district, Forest Guardians are on the frontlines of red panda conservation. They monitor habitat, deter poaching and gather scientific data to help protect the species — part of a citizen-led program launched in 2010. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Species categorises the red panda as endangered…This article was originally published on Mongabay
