Topkeydara In Darjeeling: A Lifeline For Endangered Red Pandas

In Topkeybara, Red Pandas, only about 2,500 adults left in the wild, are finding a safe habitat to remain alive and furring

Resident Ddevils *Photograph by Sandipan Chatterjee*

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Updated: 21 Jun 2019 4:03 pm

Pandas & Leos

Red pandas and snow leopards are critical indicators of the health of the Himalayan ecosystem

Both are solitary animals. Red pandas are active at dawn, dusk, and at night. They live at altitudes between 4,900 and 16,500 feet

They are sometimes called lesser panda

Western researchers found red pandas much before the giant panda in 1869

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The cool downdraft from the Kanchenjunga blended with the warm sun on a crispy summer morning at the outdoorsy Topkeydara where the insolent Shifu unwinds on a tree-top perch after his bamboo breakfast. The five-year-old male red panda avoids the foot-long lenses of ‘Instagram upvote hunters’ pointing towards him from 25-foot below. He cannot be click-captured today. The seek-out for Master Shifu, whose animated adaptation endeared movie-goers around the world in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, is threatening to end before it fully unfurled. He is doing the mushi-finger skadoosh on his biped fans.