The Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium is leading the newest coordinated red panda conservation effort in American zoos, and the zoo set out what it is for on September 18. SAFE Red Panda is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums program that ties what accredited zoos already do well to specific threats the species faces in the Himalayas.
Twenty-seven zoos and partner organizations have joined. The zoo’s Director of Conservation, Dr. Shafkat Khan, is the program’s Vice Program Leader and Conservation Action Lead.
What SAFE actually is
Saving Animals From Extinction is AZA’s framework for pointing the combined resources of accredited institutions at one species at a time. Each program gets a written plan, named leaders drawn from member zoos, and working groups that take on particular problems rather than a general commitment to care.
SAFE Red Panda was the 41st program added to the roster, in January 2024. AZA now lists 59, so the ordinal is a date stamp rather than a measure of the field.
The plan addresses key conservation challenges facing red pandas, including habitat loss and degradation, poaching and illegal trade, small and isolated populations, pathogens and diseases, infrastructure development, inadequate awareness, and climate change.
Dr. Shafkat Khan, Director of Conservation, Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium
The dog vaccination problem
The most concrete piece of this is also the least obvious. In the Himalayas, canine distemper virus and rabies circulate in village and feral dog populations, and both can cross into wildlife. A red panda that catches distemper from a dog is as dead as one that is snared.
Dr. Lauren Kane, the Pittsburgh Zoo’s Senior Associate Veterinarian, co-leads SAFE Red Panda’s One Health working group, which is designing and running a campaign to vaccinate feral and domestic dogs against both diseases. It is a useful illustration of what a zoo brings that a field organization often cannot: a large bench of veterinarians, technicians and animal care professionals who do exactly this work every day.
Why zoos are a plausible place to run this
There are roughly 134 red pandas of the Himalayan species, Ailurus fulgens, living in 100 AZA zoos across North America. AZA institutions also hold the Chinese red panda, Ailurus styani, so the real number of red pandas in accredited care is higher than that figure alone suggests.
That population is the reason the species is a good candidate for this treatment. It gives the program a hundred institutional front doors, a hundred audiences, and a standing body of expertise in husbandry, veterinary medicine and behavior that has nowhere else to be applied at scale.
Continually integrating the stories of this SAFE’s work and that of our field partners into educational programs at partner institutions will be a vital part of this SAFE’s success. Additionally, it will support partner institutions in implementing SAFE Red Panda activities with their home audiences.
Dr. Jenn Torpie, Vice President of Education and Community Engagement, Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium
Red pandas are, bluntly, popular, and the program’s plan says so in as many words. Visitor affection is a resource, and pointing it at dog vaccination clinics in Nepal is a more interesting use of it than a plush toy.
What the Red List says, and what it does not
The red panda is listed as Endangered by the IUCN, on a plausible decline of 50 percent over the last three generations, estimated at 18 years.
Two caveats belong with that. The assessment dates from 2015 and the Red List itself flags it as needing updating. And it gives no global population figure at all, stating that there is no credible quantification of decline rate from anywhere in the species’ range. Country estimates exist and disagree with each other. Any single worldwide red panda number in circulation is a secondary-source figure, not an IUCN one.
There is also a live taxonomic disagreement worth knowing about. IUCN still treats the red panda as one species. AZA’s own program plan treats it as two, A. fulgens and A. styani, which is why the 134 figure above carries a species qualifier that is easy to lose.
Where to see the work
Red pandas are having a conspicuous year in accredited zoos. The Buffalo Zoo raised cubs this summer, Roger Williams Park Zoo rebuilt its habitat as Red Panda Paradise, and in Berlin, Tierpark Berlin’s cub left the nest box this month.
The Pittsburgh piece of it is quieter and, over ten years, probably matters more: a written plan, named people, and a vaccination campaign for village dogs eight thousand miles from Pennsylvania.
Quick answers
- What is an AZA SAFE program?
Saving Animals From Extinction is the Association of Zoos and Aquariums framework that points the combined resources of accredited institutions at one species, with a written plan, named leaders from member zoos and working groups on specific threats.
- What does SAFE Red Panda actually do?
It addresses habitat loss, poaching and illegal trade, small and isolated populations, disease, infrastructure development, awareness and climate change. Its One Health working group is running a campaign to vaccinate feral and domestic dogs in the Himalayas against canine distemper virus and rabies.
- How many red pandas live in AZA zoos?
About 134 Himalayan red pandas, Ailurus fulgens, in 100 AZA zoos in North America. AZA institutions also hold the Chinese red panda, Ailurus styani, so the total across both is higher.
- Are red pandas endangered?
The IUCN lists the red panda as Endangered on a plausible decline of 50 percent over the last three generations, estimated at 18 years. That assessment dates from 2015, is flagged as needing updating, and publishes no global population figure.
