Adorable red panda celebrates first birthday at NJ zoo

A celebrity just celebrated his birthday. CNN’s Anderson Cooper turned 59 on June 3. On the same day Mike Gordon from the band Phish turned 61 and a Tod Josh Segarra turned 40.

June 3rd was also the birthday of a Jersey celebrity. And he turned 1.

Dr. Stephen Wallace, which, believe it or not, is the unusually formal name of a little red panda that resides at the Cape May County Zoo, just celebrated his first birthday.

Red Panda

They call him Wally for short.

And blessedly, since I don’t need a red panda pulling this doctor business on me. According to NJ.com he was actually named after a paleontologist who discovered red panda fossils in Tennessee. Those fossils are said to be from the ancestors of modern red pandas now found in Asia.

Dr. Wallace arrived from the Knoxville Zoo just last month and is said to be curious and adventurous in his new environment. There’s another red panda there named Ember but Dr. Wallace went stag to his first birthday party because they have not yet introduced the two pandas.

Cape May County Park and Zoo via Google Street View

If you’d like to pay a belated birthday visit...

This adorable member of an endangered species (there are only a few thousand left living in the wild) lives at the Cape May County Zoo, open every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You’ll find them at 707 US Route 9 North, Cape May Court House.

The zoo was recently named one of the best free attractions in the country according to USA Today. There’s never any admission but they greatly appreciate donations.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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