Suzie Liu's 10th birthday was fast approaching. It was a big day and it called for a big gift. Daddy Liu had asked her if she wanted a robot puppy, a bouncy castle or a saltwater aquarium. But Suzie Liu's heart was set on something furry. All she wanted was a red panda. She would love it so much. Mama Liu said ‘Who will take care of it?’. But Suzie Liu knew she would love to brush its thick red-brown fur, smoothen its bushy ringed tail and caress the white tip of its red ears. Like the snow capped peaks of the Kanchenjunga. She wanted a red panda so bad. Daddy Liu said he would make it happen. She was his little princess after all. A few weeks ago, she had watched a video about red pandas. Their berry eyed, button nosed beauty had melted Suzie Liu’s whole heart like an ice cream puddle in summer.
But what seemed like a harmless birthday gift for a little girl was going to set off an unfortunate chain of events. A story that would cross several international borders and write the fate of a vanishing species.
Far away in the blue ridges of Singalila, Ponya tottered along the sturdy branch of a Himalayan oak. Balancing on the slippery moss and lichen wrapped surface with her tail.
From her mouth jutted out a bamboo twig with soft green leaves. She was walking towards a hole in the tree trunk.
Ponya was one of the last few red pandas living in this part of the Eastern Himalayas. Just months ago, she had given birth to a litter of 2 cubs. They were nestled in the hollow of the tree, on a snug bed of spongy leaves, wild grass, and soft green moss, carefully put together by their mother. It was not unlike the rock crevice den in which they were born. And from which Ponya had to move them to this nest after a yellow-throated marten, a feisty predator that looked like a weasel, was seen prowling nearby, hoping to make a meal out of the red panda cubs. Fiah and Pokiha, Ponya’s babies, were still too little. They wouldn’t know how to defend themselves. And a hungry marten could spell disaster.
Ponya had to keep an eye on them, always. She was a doting mother. She spent most of her time in the nest with them. Leaving the oak tree only to find bamboo shoots to eat, forage for berries and seasonal blooms, the occasional insect. Some days she would lounge on a branch shrouded by a canopy of rhododendron leaves and catch a moment to herself. The sun warmed her back and made her eyes close. She would doze off listening to the call of crickets, and babbler birds echoing through the forest.
Mothers needed time off too. She loved looking after her babies, but every now and then when the sun shone bright, the skies were blue, and the mists were taking a day off, Ponya would go off to be by herself and lounge in solitude. While she lay on a thick branch, her tail wrapped around her neck to keep her warm, her ears were always perked up for the slightest signs of movement.
A crunch of dry twigs, a sudden flash of yellow skin and dark rosettes between the conifer trees, the screech of a circling eagle high in the skies above, would snap her out of her bamboo-fuelled reverie and send her rushing home to her little ones. The trees were her safe place.
Just the other day, she had narrowly escaped the clutches of a snow leopard. Her tongue had picked up the scent of threat from far away and she had abandoned her search for the finest bamboo twigs halfway, to run up the nearest fir tree, as high as she could go. The leopard could smell her, she knew it by the way it lingered around the base of the tree trunk. She crouched in fear, her throat choking up. She hoped and wished the leopard wouldn’t climb up the tree. She would have no chance then. Her babies needed her.
It had been her lucky day. A barking deer had wandered in and distracted the leopard. An easier meal perhaps. At least one that it could see and not just smell. Ponya was glad she was almost invisible. Her red brown fur remained well hidden in the red brown moss and the white lichen growing on the bark hid her white face.
That evening, as she retired to her nest, she had licked her cubs and groomed them, a little more than usual.
‘Stoppp it mamma, it tickles’ Fiah had said, as Ponya licked the barely there fur under his paws. Soon there’d be snow on the forest floor and the fur under his paws would grow to protect Fiah’s feet from skidding on icy rocks and snow covered branches.
Ponya had continued to groom him without stopping.
Pokiha had pounced on both of them, with a high pitched whistle. That meant she was hungry. Pokiha was always hungry, chomping down bamboo leaves and shoots, berries and flowers and sometimes even a stray ant or beetle.
‘You just ate Poki, you can’t be hungry again! You eat like a…like a…like a red panda, I suppose. You’re growing so fast.’ Ponya had thought aloud while licking Poki’s ears and then her own paws, and back to Poki’s face.
‘Why can’t we go out more often Mama?’ Fiah had asked.
‘It’s dangerous out there. Just this afternoon…I nearly got…' Ponya had stopped herself. She couldn’t tell the kids. They’d have nightmares. But they also needed to get out of the nest. She couldn’t keep them hidden forever. She knew of red panda mothers who had trouble kicking the kids out of the nest when they were eighteen and twenty months old. She wouldn’t be able to raise another litter if the old ones refused to grow up.
‘You need to learn how to climb trees fast, how to grip branches tight so you don’t slip and fall. You need to know when it’s the right time to go down to the brook every day for a drink, where the leopards roam, and how to find the sweetest berries in the forest…there’s so much to learn before you leave home.’ Ponya had said to the cubs, who by then had moved on to sniff corners of the nest that were far more interesting than their mother’s long lectures.
Poki had pushed her luck, ‘Can we come with you when you go to the orchid jungle? I want to see the flowers.’
‘If you behave yourself, yes. The forest is not what it used to be. You don’t even know how to mark your territory yet.’ Ponya had said.
It was true. The bamboo trees were fast disappearing, tourist trails snaked sneakily into the ancient mountain forest, a path headed for Sandakphu mountain, brought trekkers and hikers and cars that made the forest noisy. It made Ponya want to run far away to a place where the quiet of the forest wouldn’t be disturbed by the noise of a growing crowd of strangers.
Red pandas were shy and gentle creatures. This was all too much for them.
This morning, Ponya had taught the cubs how to stand up tall, make their bodies large and stick out their claws in the face of danger. She had reminded them that their claws were sharp and they needed to use them to strike out. At the base of their tail was another weapon. A scent gland so powerful, it could release a skunk-like odour that could keep predators away.
Fiah had promptly sprayed the tree nearest to Poki with his newly discovered nasty scent.
‘Hehehehe’ he went, as Poki squealed and raised her forepaw to strike him. A game of rough and tumble later, the cubs were hungry. They found a patch of tender bamboo and ate till they could eat no more. Then they curled up together in a happy snooze.
Leaving them safe at home, Ponya had ventured out. She had the day to herself. To sunbathe and lounge.
Before night spread its inky blanket and the stars twinkled high up in the skies of Singalila, Ponya was ready to make her way back home. She climbed down head first, with the easy grace of an acrobat. She took a few quick steps forward and suddenly felt something tighten around her paws. She couldn’t move. She was trapped. Her front paw was caught in a wire trap cunningly planted between low lying shrubs by poachers. The wire was cutting into her paw.