Santa Claus did come to town. Darjeeling’s Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park (PNHZP) has proof.
On Christmas Wednesday, two red pandas arrived at the Darjeeling park from the
Netherlands.
The pandas will be kept in quarantine for a month to get acclimatised and then released for public viewing.
The park, commonly known as the Darjeeling zoo, is known for Himalayan
red pandas.
“We have received two male red pandas from the Rotterdam Zoo of the Netherlands for conservation breeding,” said Sourav Choudhury, the member-secretary of the West Bengal Zoo Authority.
“Both the pandas are two-and-a-half years old. After arriving in the Darjeeling zoo, they will be put in quarantine for a month. Later, they can pair up with the female pandas here,” he added.
The Rotterdam zoo is considered one of the oldest zoological parks in the Netherlands. In 2007, it celebrated its 150th anniversary.
The zoo is famed for running its successful captive breeding programme of red pandas, Asian elephants, Siberian cranes, crowned pigeons and Egyptian tortoises.
A Darjeeling zoo source said the two red pandas travelled a distance of around 8,000 kilometres by air and road for 30 hours to reach the zoo on Wednesday evening.
The animals are currently under the close observation of vets and
zoo-keepers.
“The pandas are doing fine and in good health. We are keeping them under close monitoring for now,” said Basavraj Holeyachi, the PNHZP director.
The zoological park in Darjeeling is the coordinating zoo for the conservation breeding of the species as part of the global captive breeding programme, which was started in the early 1980s. In 1994, the zoo saw its first successful captive breeding of red pandas,
and two cubs were born. In 2003-2004, the park released two red pandas into the wild and completed the augmentation programme as one zoo-born female red panda mated with a wild male and gave birth to a cub.
Since 2022, the zoo authorities have taken up a similar programme in the Singalila National Park of Darjeeling, said sources.
