Drusillas Park put out appeal for red panda food

Drusillas Park near Alfriston is asking people to donate fresh bamboo for their red pandas Maja and Mulan. The pair eat around 20,000 bamboo leaves every single day.

The park does grow its own. However, the pandas have worked their way through the stockpile quicker than expected. The park needs bamboo that is tall, fresh and healthy. Keeping the pandas well-fed with enough shoots and roots has been described as an "ongoing battle".

Drusillas is able to send people out to collect the food within a 15-mile radius. Due to limited human resources, they can't travel to get the food any further.

People are also welcome to deliver donations at the zoo as long as the bamboo has been cut the same day. This is so zoo keepers can get it straight into storage and keep it fresh for the pandas.

Mulan the red panda needs more bamboo

Head zoo keeper Sophie Leadbitter said: "Our own plantation has been struggling to keep up with the pandas' enormous appetite.

"If any green-fingered individuals out there have some fresh bamboo they can spare for our red pandas, we would be so grateful.

"We grow our own in our grounds to supply the required bamboo, but our gardening team have now had to ask us to stop 'raiding' their bamboo as there is very little left.

"We are therefore appealing to the public to help."

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Black bamboo is a particular red panda favourite, and both Mulan and Maja enjoy small, leafy stems. The red panda is native to the eastern Himalayas and southwest China.

Red pandas are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list because the wild population is estimated at fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and continues to decline due to habitat loss and poaching.