Feeding Red Pandas At Wellington Zoo

Yesterday we had the most amazing experience. We got to meet three of the four Red Pandas that live at Wellington Zoo. Wellington, like a handful of other zoos around the world offers 'close encounters' with some of their animals. This helps raise money for the zoo, raise awareness of the conservation needs of the animals and also enables the handlers to perform health checks. Wellington has a few different close encounters, the format of which depends on the animal. Here you can meet Red Pandas, Meerkats, Cheetahs and Giraffes. The Red Panda experience is by far their most popular and has been on our bucket list for a while.

You can book online or by phone, and for about $99 NZD you get to sit quietly while a Red Panda jumps up on your lap and eats grape and pear pieces out of your hand for half an hour. These guys are a little like meeting a hungry cat. They will come over and eat what you offer, and they may allow you to stroke them once or twice, but once they are done, they're off to go sunbathe in a tree. 

We met Kushi, a two year old female originally from Hamilton Zoo, and her perspective beau, six year old Manasa and his father, Isha. Each lives in a separate Red Panda environment which is full of trees and paths for them to climb and explore. It was a "cold" winter day - around 10 degrees C, so the Pandas were pretty active with their thick fur coats and they were more than happy to jump up on us and let us feed them. 

All three of them were very curious and friendly and while we were feeding them, the keeper gave us a little of their history, answered our questions and talked a little about their conservation. While I would have LOVED to have snuck one of these gorgeous little fur balls home, they are on the endangered list and very few are still living in the wild. I'd give you more details, but honestly my ears and brain shut down while the keeper was talking because I was overloaded by furry red gorgeousness. I guess we'll just have to go back a second time to hear the talk...