The red panda or ailurus fulgens is a small mammal found in the jungles of India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China. More than 50 percent of the population lives in the Eastern Himalayas. In this photo, red panda bears are seen sleeping in an enclosure at the Beijing Zoo in 2012. Photo: AFP

Did you know the bamboo-eating red panda is Sikkim’s state animal? Every winter, the northeastern state celebrates a Red Panda Festival. However, as of 2018, nearly 70 per cent of the red panda’s habitat in Sikkim was located outside of protected areas. Here, a male red panda rests in an open enclosure at the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park in Darjeeling in 2006. Photo: AFP

The red panda lives in a very narrow temperature range, according to the World Wildlife Fund. However, with the mercury rising, the species is forced to move to higher elevations. Pictured in 2014, this four-month-old red panda cub and its father (R) feast on tree branches at Bratislava's Zoo in Slovakia. Photo: AFP

The red panda makes its home in deciduous and conifer forests. But human activities are shrinking forests, including in India’s Sikkim, further putting the animal in danger. In this photo, male red panda cubs Joshi (L) and Shaytan (R) have a look at their surroundings at Taronga Zoo in Sydney back in 2000. Photo: AFP

The animal currently has the highest legal protection, on an equal footing with other endangered species. It is marked ‘Endangered’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of Threatened Species and under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. A 2021 picture shows a red panda, named Ruaridh at the Zoological Park in Lille, northern France. Photo: AFP

As of 2018, fewer than 10,000 remain in the wild. Encouragingly though, the benefits of conservation are said to be visible already with new red panda sightings in project areas. Here, two Red Pandas are climbing trees in their enclosure in Berlin's Tierpark zoo in 2018. Photo: AFP