Red panda twins born at Melbourne Zoo are progressing well after making their first public appearance during a vet check and vaccination.
Christina Cheng vaccinated the cubs against feline enteritis and two forms of feline respiratory disease.
The male twins were also microchipped to provide an ID for their health records.
Keepers gave the cubs Nepalese names, relating to one of the countries where their species is found in the wild.
‘Keta’ means ‘boy’ in Nepalese, and ‘Mandu’ is an abbreviation of Kathmandu. Mandu is the heavier of the two, weighing in at 853g to Keta’s 815g.
Following the veterinary check, keepers returned the cubs to their nest box.
The box is consistent with the way red pandas behave in the wild, where tree hollows are the most common nesting site in remote bamboo forests.
Melbourne Zoo’s Head Veterinarian, Michael Lynch, said keepers are now introducing the twins to the weaning process, which can take several months.
“Weaning can be problematic, so we’re trying to encourage good eating habits early,” he said.
“In the wild, young red pandas would be eating bamboo leaves and shoots and occasional invertebrates, but in captivity it’s possible for them to get hooked on sweeter fruit.”
Lynch said red panda cubs can lose weight during the weaning process, so it is a “critical time” for vets and keepers to monitor their progress.
“They have just recently started to emerge after three months, and they were not supremely confident with climbing trees at first,” he said.
“But it was interesting to see that within 24 hours their competency of climbing increased impressively.”
Lynch added that while the red pandas are “obviously very cute”, they are an endangered species and do not mate commonly.
“They only come in to heat for 24 hours, so you need everything going right when that happens,” he said.
“If you disturb the process, it’s possible for carnivores to abandon their young, but thankfully things are going well and the public have been kept back from the display.
“It has been a big effort from all concerned.”
Prior to the August breeding season, keepers installed various nesting boxes around the red panda exhibit, so female Roshani could choose a comfortable spot to give birth and look after her cubs, which were born on December 10 last year.
Carnivore Department Manager Adrian Howard said keepers installed monitors in the nest boxes before the brief breeding season.
“So for the first time we have been able to keep a close eye on the cubs during their earliest days and monitor their behaviour after any disturbance,” he said.
Red pandas are born blind and helpless and are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
While poaching remains a problem for red pandas, loss of their forested habitat is the most significant reason the species is threatened in the wild.
SAM WORRAD