Easily one of the most beloved creatures in existence, the giant panda celebrated a small victory in September of Giant pandas first became endangered in due to excessive poaching in the 80s and deforestation, depleting their bamboo food source.
A fickle species, bamboo can grow extensively in mountainous or barren lands, but then dies in the winter. This forces giant pandas in those areas to relocate for their food. Each spring, young bamboo shoots provide a valuable source of protein and nutrients for pandas, particularly for pregnant or lactating mothers.
But boars also like to eat young shoots, and research shows that pandas avoid foraging in areas inhabited by boars. Meanwhile, panda numbers increased in neighboring areas with few boars. Furthermore, boars carry diseases such as canine distemper and swine fever, which can jump to other species. Giant pandas have very few natural predators , and in the past, animals such as snow leopards, a type of wild dog called a dhole, and wolves kept takin and boar numbers in check. But these apex predators have nearly disappeared , according to a study co-authored by William McShea , a wildlife ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, in Front Royal, Virginia.
Wildlife officials lack sufficient data on either takins or boars to develop management plans that would balance their numbers and needs with those of pandas, according to Wang. In his book The Last Panda , naturalist George Schaller described the panda as a species beset by poaching, habitat loss, and bad management. Today, poaching is rare, and logging has been all-but eliminated inside and outside reserves. They also assist conservationists and biologists by collecting vital information about the animals.
Rangers usually live inside the reserves, trekking up to weeks at a time through mountainous bamboo forests to maintain camera traps and record wildlife behavior. One measure Chinese conservationists have adopted is to breed and raise pandas in captivity with the aim of releasing them into reserves to bolster wild populations. The effort has had mixed success. So far, 14 pandas have been released, 12 of them captive-bred. Of those, nine have survived.
The two others were wild pandas that had been rescued and kept in captivity. The only released panda ever confirmed to successfully breed in the wild was one of the wild rescues.
Read more about pandas being reintroduced into the wild. In late , the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas announced a plan to release three pandas in Jiangxi Province, where the animals have been extinct for at least 10, years.
This would have been the first release of captive pandas outside Sichuan Province had the plan not fizzled in mid amid fierce debate among Chinese researchers and officials over the efficacy of reintroducing pandas. Check out three places to see giant pandas in the wild. Wang hopes a decision will be made to release more pandas in a methodical, targeted way, to boost small regional populations and to connect wildlife corridors so the animals can move about freely in areas with good habitat.
All rights reserved. By the s, their numbers in the wild had fallen to just over a thousand. Extinction loomed. In the , and evaluations, giant pandas were again listed as endangered. Populations of giant pandas are still going down in their natural habitats, where an estimated 1, to 2, remain.
Loss of habitat is a severe threat to giant pandas. Many factors contribute to their habitat woes, including unreliable supplies of bamboo, agricultural expansion, poaching, cattle grazing and unlawful logging. Giant pandas are frequently destroyed accidentally by hunters aiming to kill musk deer, generally via setting up traps.
More than giant pandas reside in captivity internationally, notes the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Many of them are part of breeding missions aimed at putting giant pandas back in their natural habitats.
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