Ketu is one of the newest additions to Hamilton Zoo – a red panda cub born to Father Chito and Mother Tayla just before Christmas 2011.
Tayla had two cubs however the smaller of the two didn’t survive for long after being born.
Hamilton Zoo recently ran a naming competition which I managed to catch on Breakfast TV one Saturday morning. I did a bit of research on Tibetian names and found a couple that I liked;
- Rinchen – Treasure; precious
- Ketu – Comet
I emailed them both off to the show and didn’t think much more about it.
Last Saturday morning I was getting ready for a dive class – again watching Breakfast – and they read my name out!! Hamilton Zoo chose ‘Ketu’ as the name for the male red panda cub.
WordPress is having a minor hissy fit over the embed code (but then won’t let me use the iframes that Twitvid wants to) however if you click the video, they will play.
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I’m now looking forward to getting to see Ketu up close – and of course take a few photographs of my own!
”Vulnerable” red pandas are one of the few species with a global captive breeding programme and Hamilton Zoo is part of it. The population of red pandas is thought to be less than 10,000 and decreasing. Deforestation and habitat fragmentation are the main threats to their survival but poaching for their beautiful reddish-brown fur is also a major problem in China. The scientific name for red pandas is Ailurus fulgens, which means ‘fire-coloured cat’, although the species are not cats.
More details on the Hamilton Zoo Red Panda here
