Red Panda Wellbeing

By Aimee Turcotte

At Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, we have two Red Pandas, Ponya and Pilatus (Pilot). Ponya is a female born on June 17th, 2024, and Pilot is a male born on June 11th, 2024. Ponya came to the Beardsley Zoo on May 6th, 2025, from the Detroit Zoological Society in Michigan. Pilot arrived at the Beardsley Zoo on June 28th, 2025, from the Chattanooga Zoo in Tennessee. Ponya and Pilot live together with the expectation that they will breed, supporting their Species Survival Plan (SSP). The Red Panda SSP aims to protect Red Panda populations through coordinated breeding efforts. Ponya and Pilot were first introduced to each other at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo at the end of July 2025.

Our Animal Care Specialists implement comprehensive measures to look after the well-being of our Red Pandas.
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Our Red Pandas are fed daily with food such as leaf-eater biscuits, bamboo, cranberries, grapes, apples, and pears. The amount of food left over after each meal is recorded to check that our Red Pandas are eating a healthy and balanced diet. Ponya and Pilot are also weighed monthly, ensuring they are not losing or gaining too much weight, which could be a sign of underlying health issues.

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Additionally, our Red Pandas participate in injection training using operant conditioning. Each training session is evaluated on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the animal showing no interest in the training, while 5 reflects a ‘perfect’ training session. When a Red Panda performs a desired behavior, the animal is positively reinforced with an award. In most cases, the reward will be a treat. Ponya’s favorite reward is grapes. Pilot’s preferred snacks during training are grapes or craisins. Other types of training include crate and target training. Typically, each behavior has a verbal and visual cue, as well as a device that may be used during the training. For instance, during Pilot’s injection training, the device may be the syringe, and the visual cue may be seeing the syringe.

Ponya and Pilot are also given daily enrichment, reinforcing their natural behaviors while diminishing the likelihood of stereotypic behaviors. Enrichment has included cardboard boxes, toys, large stacks of bamboo, scents, and more!
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Animal well-being is our number one priority here at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo. Ponya and Pilot are well taken care of, that is for sure. We are very lucky to have Ponya and Pilot as a part of our Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo family!

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