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Two baby red pandas may celebrate their first birthday in a new home next summer. The Cleveland zoo today broke ground on its Asian Highlands exhibit.
The as-yet-unnamed pair of male red panda cubs were born in June and currently weigh about two pounds each. They and their parents will be moving to more spacious digs next summer – with climbing spaces and toys. The zoo calls it “enrichment.” They’ll have friends next door – snow leopard cub Sameera and her family as well as Amur leopards and a new species joining the neighborhood – a goat-antelope called a takin (pronounced TAH-ken). All are endangered.
“Scientists think that there’s fewer than 100 Amur leopard left in the wild,” says the Zoo's Executive Director Dr. Chris Kuhar.
He says the new exhibit -- next to an undeveloped hillside and kitty corner to the tiger passage which opened last summer -- will reflect the animals’ native Asian habitat.
“All of these cats like to climb and get at high altitudes. So the exhibits are going to be built into the slope on the hillside that you see behind me. So that’s going to provide some of that altitude. And the exhibits overall we’re going to have about 5 times the amount of space for the animals that we have currently.”
The enclosures will have overhead tunnels, wooden climbing structures, and rocky caves for cooling down. Kuhar says the animals originate from higher altitude regions of China and Tibet.
“They love a Cleveland winter but this time of year we’re going to provide the nice cool spaces for them to lay and when they lay in those spaces, guests can see them, as opposed to older zoos where they hide in a corner where nobody can see them.”
The $4.5 million exhibit will have 30,000 square feet of exhibit space including a central building that will show videos of the animals in the wild.
“So I think in order for people to get excited about conservation at the zoo, they have to come in and feel that the animals are being well cared for. And they have to be inspired by those animals. So by providing a great exhibit where animals are doing all those animal things that get people excited, then that gives us the platform to talk about the need for conservation,” says Kuhar.
The Asian Highlands exhibit is expected to open next summer.
