Red panda missing: Rusty the panda is found
Red panda missing: A red panda that vanished from the National Zoo was found in a D.C. neighborhood.
This undated handout photo provided by the National Zoo shows a red panda that has gone missing from its enclosure at the zoo in Washington.
Abby Wood/Smithsonian鈥檚 National Zoo/AP
The red panda that had gone rogue from The Smithsonian National Zoo聽has been in Washington D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood.
The once-lost animal, a male named Rusty, is just less than a year old and has been on exhibit at the zoo for just three weeks, after arriving from Nebraska in April. The precocious escapee had last been seen in his zoo pen Sunday evening and was not there Monday morning, at which time the zoo sounded a 鈥淐ode Green鈥� alert for a missing zoo animal.
Rusty was believed to be still within the zoo, keeping his summer vacation local and hiding in a tree, . It was considered reasonably unlikely that the red panda had high-tailed it toward the White House to express his thoughts on animal conservationism or skipped the country altogether to China, to holiday with friends there.
鈥淚t is most likely that he has not really left the vicinity. He would have to have some very strong motivation to leave the area,鈥� spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson told .
Well, that strong motivation might have been there: a determined bachelor鈥檚 last hurrah. The zoo has one other red panda, a female named Shama, and told that it had been planning to breed the two. And the enterprising panda could not have chosen a better neighborhood for its prenuptial jaunt: Adams Morgan, a section of D.C. noted for its young and throbbing club scene.
How the partying red panda escaped is somewhat mystifying. The wires on his cage, which deliver a small electronic shock, were on and functional.聽
, which looks something like a mix between a cat, a bear, and a (miniaturized) giant panda, is considered a vulnerable species, with just some 10,000 of them in the world, mostly in China but also in Bhutan and northern Nepal and Myanmar. It is only distantly related to the giant panda and is more closely related to weasels and raccoons.
The zoo鈥檚 giant pandas are still in their pens, and are sleeping happily, .