Saturday, February 21, 2015

Cute Archibald

Not the best photo (copied from a newspaper), but this red panda resides at Mill Mountain Zoo, accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The original was taken in the summer of 2014, so he is adult size now. He was one of two born at the zoo to the resident female, but was abandoned, so the zoo keepers had to raise him. Recently I read where the zoo is adopting another bottle-fed, abandoned red panda from another zoo to give him a companion. I am proud of this small, species-protecting zoo that focuses on education and maintaining the genetic diversity of the animals it has taken in. There are some birds of prey that were injured and therefore unable to survive in the wild. Most of the species kept at the zoo are under a species protection plan for breeding with other zoo animals, in order to protect the genetic diversity of that species.

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