A zookeeper at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden startled a male red panda Friday, resulting in the animal scratching her.
The zoo told Kentucky’s WXIX-TV that “keepers go in with our red pandas all the time, and a minor injury during a feeding can happen,” and that the incident was minor, with no effect on the zoo’s operating hours or the status of the red panda exhibit.
Red pandas, despite the name, are not related to the black-and-white giant panda. The small, reddish animals look similar to raccoons.
Four of the animals are at the zoo, with the young male and a female partner kept in one area and two other females kept in another, a zoo spokesperson told Newsweek.
Zoo officials attributed the attention the scratch received to an erroneous AI alert.
The zoo told Newsweek that the alert “provided an alarming account of what was actually a minor incident and used the word ’attack,’ which is not at all an accurate description of what happened.”
The spokesperson said the zookeeper “is fine, and so is the red panda.”
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