Red panda surprises locals 'ambling' down street after zoo escape

Red panda gives locals a nice surprise as it ‘ambles’ down the street after escaping Newquay Zoo

• Red panda at Newquay Zoo escaped on Friday and ambled down nearby road
• Police turned up helped zoo staff collect the cute animal, which returned home 

Locals were given a pleasant surprise after they saw an adorable red panda ‘ambling’ down the street after a daring escape from Newquay Zoo.

Police said the endangered animal, which is native to the Himalayas and China, was spotted next to rows of apples and pears at a wholesale fruit market in Springfield Road in Newquay, Cornwall yesterday.

Staff from Freshpoint greengrocers, which is about half a mile from the zoo, along with officers from Devon and Cornwall Police contained the red panda, who recently moved to Newquay, in a courtyard until it was collected by zoo staff.

Inspector Guy Blackford from Devon and Cornwall Police joked about the rescue mission in a tweet, saying ‘Not often @NewquayPolice @NewquayResponse get sent to an escaped red panda from the local zoo which was found by Newquay fruit sales.

‘Panda rescue is not a topic taught in police training yet!’

Locals were given a pleasant surprise after they saw an adorable red panda ‘ambling’ down the street after a daring escape from Newquay Zoo

 Police said the red panda animal, which is native to the Himalayas and China, was spotted next to rows of apples and pears at a wholesale fruit market in Springfield Road in Newquay, Cornwall yesterday

A member of staff at the greengrocers said a colleague in the loading bay shouted to him after seeing the red panda coming down the road, the BBC reports.

READ MORE: Police track down red panda that escaped from local zoo to a wholesale fruit market – as officer jokes panda rescue is ‘not a topic taught in training’

The man, named Gareth, asked his colleague, if it was a ‘big funny coloured cat… but no, it was a red panda’ that was ‘ambling down the road without a care in the world’.

He said the animal went into a nearby courtyard and they blocked it off until someone could deal with it. He said the police ‘thought I was pulling their leg’ but they did then show up and deal with it.

Dave Folland, Head of Newquay Zoo told the BBC: ‘On Friday morning, a red panda called Sundara, who had arrived at Newquay Zoo earlier this month, escaped from her enclosure.

‘Our team responded in accordance with well-practised procedures and she was swiftly recaptured and returned to her home.’

Devon and Cornwall Police said they were called on Friday at 7.10am after ‘reports that a red panda had been found on Springfield Road, Newquay’.

The forced added: ‘Officers attended and kept the animal contained until zoo staff arrived a short time later to return it safely.’

Newquay Zoo announced that it had welcomed a new red panda cub just three weeks ago.

Four days ago the zoo said on Facebook ‘WARNING: CUTENESS OVERLOAD.

‘We recently welcomed an adorable new red panda cub, Sundara, to join our superstar Seren at Newquay Zoo and we can’t get enough!’

Commenters, in turn, asked whether the Cornish police force had sent a ‘panda car’ – small cars used by police from the 1960s to the 1980s, that were likened to the bears because of their black and white markings – in response.

One quipped: ‘I’m guessing a panda car was deployed?’

Meanwhile another joked: ‘We don’t do swans in Cornwall….’

A member of staff at the greengrocers said a colleague in the loading bay shouted to him after seeing the red panda coming down the road, the BBC reports

Police inspector Guy Blackford joked that ‘panda rescue is not a topic taught in police training yet,’ as marked the unusual incident on Twitter

Commenters asked whether a ‘panda car’ had been sent to the incident

One commenter joked ‘we don’t do the swans in Cornwall’

In another post a few weeks ago the zoo said ‘We have two female red pandas here at Newquay Zoo. Seren arrived back in 2019 from Touroparc in France, while Sundara moved from Banham Zoo in East Anglia in 2023. They can often be found curled up high in the treetops, so don’t forget to look up!

‘Red pandas are native to the mountains and forests from northern Myanmar to Western Nepal.

‘They belong to a carnivorous group of mammals, but feed almost exclusively on bamboo shoots – eating 20 to 30 per cent of their body weight in bamboo a day! They will also eat grubs, lizards, chicks and bird’s eggs.

‘Red pandas are the original panda and were given the name roughly 50 years before the giant white and black panda.

‘Breeding season for red pandas is usually between January and March. After a gestation period of four months, one to five cubs are born. The young will stay in the nest that mum made prior to the birth for around 90 days, and they will usually only begin to appear at night.

‘They have a false thumb, or extended wrist bone, which has developed over time to help them climb trees and eat bamboo.

‘The internet browser Firefox is named after the red panda.

‘Red pandas are classed as Endangered in the wild, with their numbers continuing to decline. The main reasons for this decline is habitat loss due to deforestation and poaching and hunting for fur and the pet trade.’

Red pandas are, in fact, only distantly related to giant pandas, despite sharing a similar name.

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