Video: Tiergarten Schönbrunn
This week “Tiergarten Schönbrunn”, the Vienna Zoo in Austria, starts with the modification of the Red Panda enclosure. The zoo is investing about 50,000 euros in the construction project. “A part of the currently paved visitor path will in future be available to the animals,” says Dagmar Schratter, Director of the Vienna Zoo. “This will add 64 square meters to their 102-square-meter enclosure.”
“The Beautiful One”
This additional space is necessary, because female Red Panda Mahalia, who recently lived alone in the enclosure, is no longer single. In her temporary accommodation she met her new, two-year-old partner Manjul – his name means promisingly “the beautiful one”.
At the recommendation of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), the male migrated from Parco Faunistico La Torbiera in Italy to Vienna at the end of March and moved directly to the temporary accommodation “to save him from having to move several times”, as Eveline Dungl, responsible zoological department head, underlines.
The construction work should be completed within a few weeks. The panda couple will then move to the new facility and be on display to the visitors.
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Vienna Zoo is also participating in the protection of Red Pandas in Nepal: