Catching the light

These beautiful, endangered Red Pandas are very popular with people visiting the Calgary Zoo. They are very difficult to photograph, as they spend their time constantly moving around in their enclosure or asleep inside one of their "tree houses". I was lucky that day that this Red Panda stopped for a brief moment. Taken on 31st October 2009.

Below is an article from 2009, from CBC News, written after the birth of a new baby Red Panda at Calgary Zoo:

"Every time a red panda is born, and particularly every time the cub is raised by its mother, it's an important achievement, because the mortality rate for red panda cubs is as high as 74 per cent.

Since 1994, nine red cub pandas have been born at the Calgary Zoo.

"It is important to continue to support conservation and protection of red pandas so that some day we see a natural increase in their populations," said Tim Sinclair-Smith, curator of the zoo's Eurasia section.

"There is still a long way to go to this end, but this new birth will have a positive impact on captive population growth and genetic diversity of the species."

It's estimated there are fewer than 10,000 mature red pandas in the world. They're classified as "vulnerable" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_panda