Red panda escapes, zoo advises people to keep a look at ‘top of trees’

Red panda is a cat-sized nocturnal animal with reddish fur and a shaggy tail.

A search is on for a red panda that broke out of a zoo in the Rhone region of southeastern France. Officials at the Saint-Martin-la-Plaine Zoo said the endangered animal was last seen 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the park by a surprised motorist. The park said the panda escaped last Friday by climbing up branches broken by snowfall and swinging from tree to tree.

This photo shows the red panda that broke out of a zoo. (AP)

The panda, a cat-sized nocturnal animal with reddish fur and a shaggy tail, would probably spend “a good part of the day sleeping in a tree.” The zoo advised residents to keep a look out “at the top of the trees.”

Red panda lying on a tree branch (representational image).

Zoo veterinarian Jean-Christophe Gerard said the animal “has good claws and good teeth” and shouldn’t be hugged, although it isn’t considered dangerous.

Red pandas are unrelated to the more famous giant pandas. They are not bears and have their own taxonomically unique family called Ailuridae, reports AFP.