Where's Sunny? The Little Panda That's Captivating America

It happened almost three weeks ago. The Norfolk Zoo in Virginia discovered that their adorable 19-month-old red panda, Sunny, had escaped. Red pandas are a rare and particularly beloved sight for zoo visitors, prompting the zoo's management to launch an immediate, extensive search for Sunny.

The search unfolded like a military operation, involving drones, police units, a special hotline, and groups of volunteers scouring streets, parks, and even cemeteries. Yet, Sunny remains unfound.

"This red panda case is exceptional," Rob Vernon, spokesperson for the American Zoo Association, explained to 'The New York Times'. "It's rare for animals to escape from zoos — about six such cases happen each year in the United States. And it's quite unusual not to find the escaped animal for such a long period."

Another animal might not draw such attention, but as we've mentioned, red pandas are crowd favorites. Swarms of volunteers flocked to the zoo to assist in the search, but so far, to no avail. "In most cases, once the animals realize they aren't in a safe environment, they start heading back home," Vernon notes, recalling a wildcat that escaped from the Washington Zoo last week — it was found stretching near the zoo's birdcages within days.

Red panda (illustration: shutterstock)

Sunny's prolonged absence adds her to the exclusive club of animals that have managed to elude captivity for extended periods. This includes two capybaras (a large rodent species) that escaped from the Toronto Zoo last spring and were missing for many weeks, and a wildcat that broke free from an English zoo last July, roaming for three weeks during which it killed four lambs. The record-holder in zoo escapes, however, has passed: an orangutan at the San Diego Zoo in California that escaped no less than three times during the 1980s, sometimes with fellow primates. Should Sunny continue to evade capture, zoo officials say she may well inherit the title of 'The Most Elusive Animal'.

But will Sunny survive outside the zoo? Zoo staff are optimistic. As long as she avoids busy roads, they say, she stands a good chance: Norfolk's climate is cool and moist, with plenty of bamboo groves around the zoo.