{"id":7046,"date":"2025-08-18T12:16:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/7046\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:16:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:16:16","slug":"two-endangered-red-panda-cubs-born-at-corks-fota-wildlife-park-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/7046\/","title":{"rendered":"Two endangered red panda cubs born at Cork\u2019s Fota Wildlife Park \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Two endangered red panda cubs were born in June at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/cork\/\">Cork\u2019s<\/a> Fota Wildlife Park, it has been announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Born at Fota\u2019s conservation centre, the cubs are the offspring of three-year-old mother Suzi, who arrived at Fota Wildlife Park from Berlin Zoo, and seven-year-old father Grga, who was transferred from Zagreb Zoo in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/croatia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/croatia\/\">Croatia<\/a> in June 2019. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The cubs are not yet visible to the public, remaining in a nesting box where they sleep and nurse with their mother, Fota Wildlife Park said in a statement on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Visitors might be able to catch a glimpse of them in the next three weeks as they begin to explore their surroundings under the supervision of their mother during brief periods in the early morning or late evening. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The red panda, which has reddish-brown fur, a bushy ringed tail and a bear-like body, is classified as endangered by the World Wildlife Fund. They are often poached for their distinctive pelts in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/china\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/china\/\">China<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/myanmar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/myanmar\/\">Myanmar<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The cubs\u2019 parents are part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), a collaborative initiative among European zoos and wildlife parks to ensure the survival of the threatened species through coordinated breeding efforts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The park is now home to six red pandas that live in a specially designed habitat in the Asian sanctuary, where they are fed freshly harvested bamboo grown on site. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Julien Fonteneau, lead ranger at Fota Wildlife Park, said the care of an endangered species is \u201cone of the most meaningful aspects of the animal care work at Fota Wildlife Park\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe hope that the red panda births will raise awareness around species and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/biodiversity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/biodiversity\/\">biodiversity<\/a> loss and will inspire and educate the visiting public and future generations,\u201d Mr Fonteneau said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The park is calling on the public to help name the new cubs. Suggestions can be entered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fotawildlife.ie\/blogs\/news\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.fotawildlife.ie\/blogs\/news\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two endangered red panda cubs were born in June at Cork\u2019s Fota Wildlife Park, it has been announced.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[1868,1877,18,440,19,17,3618,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-7046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-biodiversity","9":"tag-cork","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-nature","15":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}