SUAMICO (NBC 26) — Gen Tso and Zeya are two of the Red Pandas living at the NEW Zoo in Suamico. Before International Red Panda Day, hear why zoo staff are hoping for a cub this breeding season.
- Three out of the 10,000 Red Pandas on earth have a home in northeast Wisconsin
- International Red Panda Day is Saturday, Sept. 21
- When it comes to whether Gen Tso and Zeya will have cubs, zoo staff say it's ultimately up to the animals
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
Three of the 10,000 red pandas left in the world live right here at the NEW Zoo. I'm your Suamico neighborhood reporter Pari Apostolakos here with how staff are helping conserve this endangered species.
On any given day at the Northeast Wisconsin Zoo you'll find visitors at this exhibit.
"It's such a really nice place to come and visit," Annette Miller said while at the zoo with her grandchildren Thursday.
"When we talk about [the animals] we talk about them as if they're people," Zookeeper Brent Koerner said.
The animals inside may look a little like raccoons. But they're actually red pandas, an endangered species native to Asia. Zookeeper Brent Koerner's job is to help take care of them.
"If they're gone, your ecosystem is out of balance and there's going to be a domino effect," Koerner said when asked why conserving the red panda population is important.
Animal Curator Drew Dinehart says 2,500 red pandas live in the wild, which is half of what the population was 20 years ago. He says their forest habitats are disappearing.
"If something in the wild in red panda habitats continues to get worse ... We've got a really healthy population here that we could do reintroduction efforts with," Dinehart said.
It's a population the zoo is hoping to add to in the near future, with female Zeya and male Gen Tso as potential parents.
"Gen Tso and Zeya are a really good genetic match and if they made little pandas those pandas would have some really good gene diversity," Dinehart said.
Zoo staff tried to get Gen Tso and Zeya to have a family earlier this year. When Zeya, whose never had cubs, started building a nest they thought they'd been successful.
But no cubs were born.
"First time mom, everything's a little different and new so she kind of got some practice doing that," Dinehart said. "So we're really hoping maybe another breeding season together would produce some cubs."
Dinehart says breeding season is not too far off, starting from early next year.
The zoo's red panda day celebration is Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The money raised will be donated to the Red Panda Network to help with conservation in the wild.
