Endangered species
> Giant panda |
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| Panda facts and issues |
Key issues | Facts
Key issues
- Habitat loss
Habitat loss and fragmentation are the most pressing threats to the giant panda. Large areas of natural forest have been cleared for agriculture, timber and fuel wood.
Because of China's dense human population, many panda populations are isolated in narrow belts of bamboo no more than 1,000-1,200 metres in width. Panda habitat is continuing to disappear as settlers push higher up the mountain slopes.
- Isolation
Across the panda's range, habitat is fragmented into more than 20 isolated patches. Within these patches, a network of nature reserves provides protection for more than half of the panda population. Because pandas cannot migrate between these far-flung habitat blocks, they have less flexibility to find new feeding areas during periodic bamboo die-off episodes.
- Vulnerability to illness
Small, isolated populations also face a greater risk of inbreeding, which can lead to reduced resistance to disease, less adaptability to environmental changes and reproductive problems.
- Poaching
Although they are protected by China's Wildlife Protection Law, under which poachers face a prison sentence of 20 years, poaching remains a major problem. In recent years, several panda pelts being sold for large sums have been confiscated, but there is little information about the dynamics and dimensions of this market. In 2003, the Chinese government launched operation "Spring Thunder" to crack down on the illegal trade in wildlife. More than 170,000 forestry police took part, raiding 14,900 animal fairs and 67,800 hotels and restaurants across the country. Officials confiscated 838,500 endangered animals and arrested 1,428 suspects. This included the arrest of four traders in Chongqing who were caught selling a giant panda cub pelt for £40,000.
Pandas are also unintentionally injured or killed in traps and snares set for other animals such as musk deer and black bears.
Facts
- Pandas are the rarest of the bear family. IUCN status category: endangered. 2002 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Giant pandas, (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are found only in China. They were once widespread in southern and eastern China and in neighbouring Myanmar and North Vietnam. Today there are confined to temperate forest scattered across six mountain ranges in southwestern China: Minshan, Qinling, Qionglai, Liangshan, Daxiangling, and Xiaoxiangling. For further information about Giant panda distribution visit the Giant panda: Population & Distribution section of WWF International's website.
- Results from the latest and most comprehensive survey of China's giant panda population reveal that there are nearly 1,600 pandas in the wild, over 40 per cent more animals than previously thought to exist. These findings come from a four-year-long study of pandas and their habitat carried out by the State Forestry Administration of China and WWF. The last panda survey in the 1980s found around 1,100 giant pandas in the wild.
- A panda's average lifespan is 20-25 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity. Females reach breeding age at five, and give birth to a single cub (occasionally twins) every two years. At birth, panda cubs weigh between 90-130 grams and have little fur. Adults can weigh more than 100kg.
- Pandas are erroneously believed to be poor breeders, an impression rooted in the disappointing reproductive performance of those in captivity. Wild panda populations in long-term studies are known to have reproductive rates comparable with those of some populations of American black bears, which are thriving.
- Unlike other bears, pandas do not hibernate.
- Giant pandas are closely related to bears and have the digestive system of a carnivore, but they have adapted to a vegetarian diet and depend almost exclusively on bamboo as a food source. The panda's digestive system cannot easily break down the cellulose in bamboo, so pandas must eat huge amounts - as much as 40kg - and they eat for up to 14 hours a day.
- The Shaanxi provincial government, in partnership with WWF, initiated the creation of five new panda reserves and five forested "corridors" that re-link key panda habitats in April 2003. Across China there are now 40 panda reserves - protected areas for pandas - compared to 13 two decades ago.
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WWF-UK > Research > Issues > Species > Giant panda > Facts and key issues
