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Sikkim is making efforts to save the endangered red panda from extinction. The Himalayan Zoological Park (HZP), Gangtok, in collaboration with the state Forest Department has initiated a programme for the conservation and breeding of red panda at a natural enclosure in the park.
“Red panda is an endangered species. We are in an initial stage now. We have already set up a small breeding centre for the red panda. Presently, we have six animals, two females and four males.We have been quite successful in the conservation breeding programme. In 1999, a male red panda was brought from a Darjeeling zoo and a female was brought from Holland,” said Gut Lepcha, Additional Director of Forest, HZP. A newly born red panda, born in June at the breeding centre in the HZP, has been identified as a male one. Presently, there are six red pandas (four male and two female) being incarcerated in an architectural enclosure in the Park. The state government has asked the forest department to draft a master plan for the zoo, which also includes the architectural remodelling of the enclosure of red panda, various programmes for its conservation and breeding. The state government is keen to expand the red panda breeding and also to initiate a similar programme for snow leopard and other targeted species for which the ideal sites have been identified. Red panda, one of the
rare and endangered animal species in the world categorised in
Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act and International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is the state animal of Sikkim. — ANI
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