(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-22 15:38

Despite being separated from their mother at a young age, two red panda cubs are thriving at Edmonton's Valley Zoo.

The babies, Neko and Su lin, will be six months old on Boxing Day and love playing outside in the snow. They were taken from their mother shortly after birth because she was over-grooming them, causing cuts that led to one of the cubs having to take antibiotics.

Keepers think the mother didn't produce enough milk for the two babies and was over-grooming them in response to their cries for more.

There are believed to be only about 1,200 of the sub-species of red panda left in the wild because their diet of bamboo is severely threatened by deforestation.

The Edmonton cubs, two of 44 of the pandas in captivity in North America, are part of a species survival plan that aims to protect a healthy gene pool of animals that are threatened with extinction in the wild.

 

 

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