Pandas not all black and white

Press, 21 October 1983, Page 3

Pandas not all black and white

Panda bears are not all black, white, and cuddly. Two red pandas, at present in quarantine at Orana Park, look more like racoons than the larger black-and-white animals that sit on toy-shop shelves. The pair have been imported from China for the Hadlow Game Park near Timaru.

The lesser pandas, as they are known, were not at all like giant pandas, said the owner of the game park, Mr Bryan Bassett-Smith, yesterday.

“They are the size of a corgi dog with a long, bushy tail, black feet and legs, an orange-red coat, and a black-and-white face,” he said.

The breeding pandas are part of an exchange between the Hadlow Game

Park and China. In 1978 Hadlow sent Chengdu Zoo two wallabies and this year it has sent the zoo two jaguars and two keas. Chengdu Zoo is in southwest China in the foothills of the Himalayas. “This part does not have a lot of contact with the outside world. They were really thrilled with the exchange of animals,” Mr Bassett-Smith said.

The pandas have settled into their new surrounds at Orana, although they have suffered from jet-lag after their long flight from China.

“The planes were airconditioned and so the ani-, mals got dehydrated and one of them had trouble with his balance when he arrived, but they are feeding well,” he said. The animals are being fed on a porridge of rice, soya beans, mince, sugar, fruit, and milk, and are being weaned off bamboo on to lucerne hay. They will come out of quarantine on November 18 and will depart for Hadlow where they will be housed in a new enclosure being built for them.