FARGO (AP) - It helps to be cute in this cold, hard world, but it doesn't hurt to have a sugar daddy, either.

The red pandas at Fargo's Red River Zoo have both going for them.

The endangered raccoon-size puffballs of red fur have had a 75-year-old retired banker and insurance agent from Marion in their corner for a decade.

Just like the Smurfs of the 1980s cartoons had Papa Smurf as a wise and benevolent guide, zoo officials say DuWayne Bott is the guy who could legitimately claim the title of "Papa Panda."

If not for Bott, red pandas would be another small step down the road to extinction, zoo officials say.

Zoo Executive Director Paula Grimestad said Bott has forked out at least $50,000 in the past few years to help the endangered critters. She said $40,000 went to buy and transport a successful mating pair of pandas from Japan and about $10,000 went to help build breeding facilities and a learning center.

Bott also sponsored the original panda exhibit at the zoo, she said.

The panda patron will say only that he made "a substantial commitment."

"If they (people) knew how much I've stuck into these pandas, they'd think I was nuts," he said.

He said he was simply looking to help the zoo get off to a good start when he saw photos of the pandas in an album of animals that needed sponsorships.

"They were small and they were cute and they were quite active," Bott said. "And they were a species that was becoming extinct.

"The possibility that North Dakota could become a factor (in saving the species) got me interested," he said.

Bott, like everyone else, usually observes the pandas from outside their enclosure.

But recently, he and the pandas got a treat.

Lead panda keeper Marcy Thompson handed him a small tub filled with grapes.

Red pandas eat mainly bamboo, but they go ga-ga over grapes, she said. In seconds, Bott went from bystander to best panda buddy.

"There you go kid," Bott said to Yukiko, the male of the successful breeding pair he bought and transported from Japan.

"You want one, too?" he asked, as Shan Tou, Yukiko's mate, nosed in under his arm to get at a grape. "Boy, you're hungry, aren't you."

"It's panda-monium!" said Grimestad with a laugh as four red pandas soon were mobbing Bott for grapes.

Of eight panda cubs born in the last year in North America, seven survived, zoo officials said. Shan Tou and Yukiko produced two cubs, a female named Li Ming, and a male named Xiao Li.

"This is really all thanks to DuWayne," Grimestad said.

Red pandas have two subspecies, Grimestad said: Ailurus fulgens fulgens and Ailurus fulgens styani.

The styani pandas are found only in China in the wild, and are the rarer of the two subspecies, Grimestad said.

The Species Survival Plan, the group that coordinates breeding programs, had just about given up on the styani, and was planning to interbreed them with the fulgens, Grimestad said. Then Fargo had its success, she said. Now the styani will be given more time to bounce back.

Grimestad said Bott's patronage made that possible.

"It's really helped the program move again," she said. "We're on the road to saving them."

Bott said he made a very good investment.

"It's a program that I think is needed. The fact that I can do something for it, makes me feel real good," Bott said. "You can't take it with you. You might as well use it for some projects that will do some good before you go."