n human care, red pandas can be active anytime of the day but they are primarily crepuscular (most active at dawn and dusk). On average they are awake about 45 percent of the day, and they are more active in cooler weather, especially so during the winter mating season. However, in significantly cold temperatures red pandas can become dormant, lowering their metabolic rate and raising it every few hours to wake up and look for food. This adaptation has allowed them to spend almost as little energy as a sloth, which is exceptionally beneficial considering the low nutrition content of their diet. This species has also adapted behaviors to regulate temperature, such as curling up into a tight ball when it is cold, which serves to conserve body heat and energy expenditure. When temperatures are warm, red pandas will stretch out on a branch and pant to lower their body temperature.

Red pandas are generally solitary, but there are a couple of exceptions to the rule. First, young red pandas grow relatively slowly, so they develop extended associations with their mothers that last for over a year. Second, red pandas have short relationships during the annual breeding season.

In terms of their ranging patterns, red pandas behave much like larger carnivores. They tend to have overlapping home ranges in which the individuals rarely interact with each other. This may seem odd, since red pandas mostly eat bamboo. However, red pandas search for the most tender bamboo shoots and leaves, and these prime specimens may be patchily distributed — not unlike the prey of larger animals such as jungle cats. In effect, the red panda’s habits reduce overcrowding and overuse of shared resources.

The home ranges of female red pandas often measure about one square mile, while males can live in areas twice that size. Male home ranges frequently overlap with at least one female home range and sometimes expand during the breeding season. Because red pandas constantly need to conserve energy, they only cover 650 to 1,000 feet of their home ranges per day and about 25% of their home ranges per month.

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The red panda’s diet is very unusual for a mammal and consists mostly of bamboo. When the weather is warm enough, they also eat insects and fruit. Although the giant panda eats almost every part of the bamboo plant (except the roots), the red panda only eats the youngest, most tender shoots and leaves. In addition, the red panda chews the bamboo thoroughly, whereas the giant panda hardly chews at all. The red panda’s preference for bamboo is apparently an ancient adaptation, as indicated by fossils of similar animals that have been found in Eastern Europe and North America. These specimens date back to the Miocene (25 to 5 million years ago) and Pliocene (5 to 2 million years ago) periods, leading scientists to believe that bamboo and red panda-like animals have historically been found in many areas of the planet. It is likely that the range of the bamboo has increased and decreased with changes in global temperature and moisture, and fortunately for the red panda, bamboo still thrives in many parts of the southern Asia.

The red panda’s dietary specialization has an profound impact on the animal’s daily life. For one thing, bamboo is very high in indigestible fiber, making it extraordinarily difficult for red pandas to extract the nutrients that they need. Cows, horses, and other herbivorous mammals normally have very strong teeth and extra fermentation chambers in their guts. However, while red pandas have large teeth, their guts are not specialized to handle plant matter. In fact, red pandas only extract about one quarter of the nutrients from bamboo, and food passes through their digestive tract quite quickly. That means that many red pandas lose as much as 15 percent of their body weight during the winter, when their other preferred foods (such as insects) are not readily available.

To cope with the lack of food during the winter months, red pandas have evolved several ways of meeting their energy demands. For instance, red pandas can spend as much as 13 hours a day looking for and eating bamboo. They also have a very low metabolic rate (almost as low as sloths), and can slow their metabolism even further in colder temperatures. Finally, their thick fur covers their entire body, including the soles of their feet, allowing them to conserve their body heat.

Protecting the red panda goes hand in hand with protecting its habitat. In the past, the dense root systems and undergrowth of Nepal’s forests could be relied upon to retain moisture and slow water runoff. Recently, however, logging and other forms of forest degradation have upset this balance and sent rich soil cascading down mountainsides with the annual monsoons. Many Nepalese people count on the red panda’s habitat for their survival, and this problem cannot disappear on its own. For example, Langtang National Park in Nepal is considered to be an important area for red pandas, but 30,000 people live near the park and depend on its resources. The reality is that these people are not opposed to change. Rather, they lack viable economic alternatives. By working directly with the people of the PIS Corridor, we aim to create a new system in which conserving the red panda’s prime habitat will actually benefit the surrounding communities.

The exact size of Asia’s red panda population is currently unknown, but zoos around the world have taken up the call preserve the species. More than 80 zoos currently have red pandas and almost all of them participate in a management program to ensure the survival of a viable zoo population. In North America, the red panda population management program is called the Red Panda Species Survival Program (SSP). The SSP keeps a studbook of all red pandas on the continent, determines which animals should be mated, and develops long-term research and management strategies for the species. Other management programs have been created in Japan, Europe, Australia, and China.