I Think I Saw a Red Panda, and it Lives in My Neighborhood

in #animals7 years ago (edited)

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The above picture source is not my picture and is only for reference.
  • I didn't see it stand up, just thought that picture was so cute.

My Creature Sighting at 4 AM on 6/23/17

The night before last, I saw a creature at 4 A.M. on the east side of the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles.

I've lived in L.A. for 4 years now, and in that time I've seen plenty of

  • possums
  • raccoons
  • believe it or not, there's a pack of coatimundis in West Hollywood

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This was not any of those.

What Happened

When I was driving up to my house I noticed the creature sniffing around in a neighbor's yard which is a corner house with high visibility. It looked like it was eating the grass.

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Bear (ha) in mind that a raccoon would be rummaging into people's trash. I've never seen a raccoon around here or had any problems with them getting into the overflowing trashcans around here.

It saw me and I saw it, and then it sat down like a bear.

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Source

Or - like a red panda. Fucking cute.

I went inside and put my stuff down and grabbed my cell phone and tried to catch it on camera.

It was still there when I returned but my blasted phone was not about catching this treefoot creature on camera. So I watched it creepily crawl up the creepy old trees, eye reflecting in the night.

My cell phone's camera didnt pick it up since it was dark out, but I saw it fine in person.

I know it wasn't a coatimundi because

  • it was cute (sorry but coatis with their long snoots really aren't cute and they're jerks).
  • It didn't have a long skinny ring tail like the coatis do.

I know it wasn't a raccoon because

  • it was 3x bigger than the biggest raccoon I've ever seen
  • it retreated up into a group of 4 very big, very fat, very shaggy palm trees that have never been trimmed. GREAT hiding spot btw. Raccoons don't live in trees nor climb in that manner.
  • It crawled very SLOWLY up the tree like it was trying to be slick or something.
  • I don't think raccoons eat grass

It looked every bit exactly like a red panda.

It's a Resident

Fun part is, I know this creature lives here. Because my ex-roommate would always tell me "There's some big f-ckin raccoons or something outside." He'd describe them in a plural tense, so I wonder if there's even two maybe. They'd be gone by the time he told me and I went outside. Finally saw one though :)

Evidence to Support Red Panda Theory

So I thought it would have been eating the cat food I leave out for the few neighborhood cats, but I don't think it's interested in that.

After Googling, I found out what Red Panda's eat: plants.
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More specifically, bamboo. Duh, just like regular pandas, of course!! Well that really clicked with me because there's a whole row of bamboo right around the corner from the trees!

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Using Google maps, I measured the distance from the trees where Treefoot (possibly) lives to the row of bamboo.

500 ft.

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They also eat fruit, well there's a fruit tree about 130 ft. away from Treefoot's cave that spills into my back yard.

Setting Up Surveillance

I'm gonna be using an old android phone of mine as a security camera to hopefully catch it. The software/app somehow magically turns it into an okay night vision camera.

I started last night, pointed at (actually too far above) the cat food bowl. How silly, pandas (probably) don't eat cat food...

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No reports of any current missing red pandas, could be an exotic pet that got loose.

It's a fun mystery. The trees where it retreated to might be it's home, right on the corner. I'll be creeping my neighbor out trying to see the treefoot at 3 - 5 AM next few nights.

EDIT

After some feedback I suppose it's better to provide SOMETHING of what I was able to record when I saw it. Here's a gif from the horrible cell phone video I recorded of the creature:

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You can only see it's eye reflecting, but you can tell it was walking across the yard towards but away from me.

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Fun article. Too bad no pictures.. a low light camera made for night shots would be the best I guess.

Your comment inspired me to really take another look at the video I did capture and try to see if it can be enhanced. I put it into VLC media player and with the lighting effects on there was able to lighten it. I've ammended the results to the bottom of my post. :) Thank you so much!

This post received a 2.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @cryptogee! For more information, click here!

Those eyes in the dark are quite something. It looks like it must have been a pretty-good sized animal.