RPN to work with Japanese Zoo

Kathmandu, Mar. 24:Red Panda Network, a pioneering conservation organization focusing on Red Panda, has signed a memorandum with a Japanese Zoo, here in Kathmandu Friday, to extend research on and monitoring of red panda in eastern Nepal.

At a program organized today in the head office of RPN to give information to the press, RPN's country director Ang Fhuhri Sherpa said that the cooperation between the Japanese zoo and RPN would open a new horizon in panda research and conservation.

Speaking to the Nepali press Fukuoka's Omuta City Zoo's spokesperson Kanako Tomisawa said the RPN's efforts in panda conservation was laudable and hoped that the cooperation would be beneficial to both Nepalese and Japanese sides as well as a contribution to overall biodiversity conservation.

Omuta City Zoo is a Japanese zoo that focuses on caring for the mental and physical health of the animals so as to ensure that they live in harmony with their environment. It has implemented an array of initiatives aimed at improving animal welfare. "This MoU solidifies the partnership between the Parties, with the shared objective of jointly promoting environmental education in cooperation with local residents to deepen understanding of the environment of the habitat of red pandas," Sherpa told.

According to this collaboration, the Fukuoka Zoo supports Red Panda Nepal in terms of logistics and funds to monitor and research red panda along with educational programs focusing on local schools of red panda habitat area.

The proposed program for the next three years aims to install camera traps with climate indicators, and plant more than two thousand saplings.

Known as 'Habre' in Nepali, the red panda is critically endangered and lives on the canopy of broadleaf in mixed temperate forests from western Nepal to Sichuan, China. The mammal is not related to the giant panda, and is not a bear but is closer to racoons and squirrels.

There are now less than 10,000 wild red pandas, with 800 in zoos around the world. "In Nepal, there are about 1,000 of the animals living in bamboo and rhododendron forests in 24 of the country’s mountain districts, mostly in eastern Nepal," reputed Whitley conservation award receiver Sonam Tasi Lama told. “We hope this mutual effort will yield some exciting result that will guide us in future."

Red panda's population is in decline because of poaching and habitat destruction. Despite not having any medicinal, cultural, or religious value, red pandas are being poached for their pelt. Listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) list as critically endangered, the red panda has been seeing a record number of illegal seizures with its habitat fragmented into over 400 isolated patches.

Red Panda Network is leading the longest-running monitoring project in the world, with 10 wild red pandas successfully GPS-collared and studied. They have restored 400 hectares of habitat around the third highest peak in the world Mt. Kangchenjunga, trained over 200 citizen scientists, and supported 200 school students with Red Panda Conservation Scholarships.