Three Red Pandas Make Their Public Debut At Local Zoo

By John McDevitt

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- Three young red pandas make their public debut today at the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown.

Slash, Shredder and Clinger will be one-year-old later this month.

The red panda brothers were born at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington. Their mother died a couple of months after their birth and they were raised by humans.

The red pandas will be on display in a newly built exhibit at the Elmwood Park Zoo.

David Wood, general curator at the zoo, says, "They are not the giant panda. The giant panda is the large black and white animal that looks almost like a bear. The red pandas are most closely related to raccoons. They do have the same specialized diet as the giant panda where 90 percent of their diet is bamboo. We actually had to plant some new bamboo grows at the zoo to feed the pandas."

The red panda is an endangered species and the brothers are in the American Zoo Association's breeding program called the "species survival plan."

"There's all kinds of computer programs like computer dating to keep the animals as pure as possible without the risk of inbreeding."