Red panda heartbreakingly clings to dead sister after Chinese earthquake

Red panda heartbreakingly clings to dead sister after Chinese earthquake
(Image credit: iStock)

China's Jinggu County rocked through a 6.6-magnitude earthquake last week, and when keepers at the region's Pu'er Sun River National Park arrived at work the next day, they couldn't find one of the red pandas, a female named Yuan Yuan.

What the keepers did find was Yuan Yuan's sister, Xiao Huang, grabbing fruit slices and carrying them off through the trees. The keepers followed the red panda to her missing sister, who had been crushed by a tree that fell during the earthquake. When park officials tried to put Yuan Yuan into a bag and carry her out of the forest, Xiao Huang clung to the bag:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.