Rusty, the red panda who escaped from the National Zoo back in June of 2013 when he was less than a year old, has passed away unexpectedly according to a social media post by Pueblo Zoo. Rusty roamed around Adams Morgan when he escaped the soon at some point during the night of June 23rd. He was spotted throughout Adams Morgan until the Washington Humane Society located him in a tree at 2pm the next day and was able to put him in a crate and bring him back home to the zoo.
Rusty was born in 2012 at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska. He then moved to the National Zoo in DC where he lived for a while before moving once again to the Pueblo Zoo in Colorado. While at Pueblo Zoo he became a father of twins, Mogwai and Momo. Pueblo Zoo released the following statement regarding Rusty’s death earlier this week: