NZ panda hears call of the wild

Red pandas Maya and Amber are staying behind at Auckland Zoo but their friend Khosuva is being flown to Darjeeling in India as part of a breeding and conservation programme. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Auckland Zoo is sending one of its female red pandas to Darjeeling Zoo in India in exchange for a male red panda.

Eight-year-old Khosuva left for Darjeeling yesterday.

Any offspring she produces will be released into the wild as part of Project Red Panda, an international breeding programme.

Deforestation and fur-hunters have caused a 40 per cent dive in the red panda population in the past 50 years.

Only a few hundred survive in Nepal. But since starting 20 years ago, the programme has successfully bred more than 55 red pandas, and released four into the wild.

In the co-operative project, Auckland Zoo will next month welcome 10-year-old Sagar. He will travel from Darjeeling Zoo to be paired up with Khosuva's sister Amber.

Auckland Zoo conservation officer Peter Fraser said the animal exchange was a great example of how a zoo's exotic captive population could directly support a wild population.

Darjeeling Zoo has nine adult male red pandas, three females and two infants and decided to balance its gender mix by swapping a male for Auckland's female.

"We have to avoid genetic problems that could arise due to inbreeding," the zoo said.

Red pandas live in the Himalayan foothills from western Nepal through northern Burma and in the mountains of southwest China, in forests with dense bamboo growth which are being destroyed for farms and for firewood.

Next month, Auckland Zoo will also send two young Sumatran tiger siblings to Symbio Wildlife Park in New South Wales for captive breeding.

In 2008, Jalur and Cinta, with their brother Berani, became the first tigers to be bred here.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: NZPA