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Save the Panda Petition

2011-02-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

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How to Save the Panda

2011-02-26T07:34:00.000-08:00

This is the emblematic animal for our planet's endangered fauna. But during the last 15 years, the situation has improved: the population of giant pandas has grown from 1,100 to 1,600. A 40 % increase, over a territory of 23,000 square km.

Panda requires not altered/slightly altered environments, in the middle mountains over 2,000 m (6,000 ft) of the Yangtze basin, in southeastern China, in the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu (the chains of Minshan, Qinling, Qionglai, Liangshan, Daxiangling, and Xiaoxiangling, harboring vast bamboo forests, home also for many pheasant species, giant salamanders (1.5 m or 5 ft long) and the rare golden takin antelope.

Poaching of panda is punished with over 20 years in jail, but poachers still place traps for different species in the panda's habitat. The fact that a panda skin costs up to 70,000 Euro is still a huge temptation.

The timber exploitation in the areas inhabited by the pandas is forbidden since 1998. In 20 years, deforestation had wiped out 50 % of the panda's habitat. Another positive program was Grain-to-Green, directed for recovering mountain slopes as agriculture terrains inside the forest.

Even if the general population is of 1,600, the nuclei of population are made of 50-100 individuals. Scientists consider an overall population of 2,000 as secure.

In the last 2 million years, pandas passed from meat to bamboo. They eat 12-40 kg (27 to 90 pounds) of bamboo daily, shoots, stems and leaves, and this takes them 14 hours. Based on the bite marks impressed in the digested bamboo stems from the panda feces, scientists can make the difference from one individual to another. Thus, feces tell the scientists the number of pandas encountered in a region.

The last census found new populations in Liuba and Ningqiang (Shaanxi) and confirmed that the mountains of Qinling and Minshan should convert in areas of priority protection as they concentrate the highest densities of pandas. By now, there are 40 natural reserves of special protection for the species (compassing 45 % of the areal of the panda), but the isolation of some make the genetic exchange between individuals quite difficult, favoring the endogamy, which decreases the quality of the populations.

WWF asks for the creation of corridors connecting these nuclei, in which local human populations should be involved, essentially in activities compatibles with the panda conservation and jobs like panda watching, monitoring, and anti-poaching patrols, like in the case of the Wolong reserve (Sichuan).

Of the 166 captive pandas in the world, most of them are in Chinese zoos and centers (like Wolong), and about 20 in the US, Mexico, Japan, Germany and Austria. All are involved in conservation and captivity breeding programs. Still, for the moment, no individual bred in captivity has been released in the wild, even if the breeding programs were successful, as conservationists want to be sure that habitat loss, poaching, isolation and endogamy are gone.

For breeding pandas, Chinese have employed from video panda porn to Viagra and Chinese traditional remedies. Cloning has been considered for pandas, using as mother females of American black bear. In the center of Chengdu (Sichuan), a bank of epithelial cells taken from 26 individuals has been created, with the aim of conserving their genetic traits.

The Giant Panda Facts

2011-02-26T07:29:00.001-08:00

The giant panda has an insatiable appetite for bamboo. A typical animal eats half the day—a full 12 out of every 24 hours—and relieves itself dozens of times a day. It takes 28 pounds (12.5 kilograms) of bamboo to satisfy a giant panda's daily dietary needs, and it hungrily plucks the stalks with elongated wrist bones that function rather like thumbs. Pandas will sometimes eat birds or rodents as well.
Wild pandas live only in remote, mountainous regions in central China. These high bamboo forests are cool and wet—just as pandas like it. They may climb as high as 13,000 feet (3,962 meters) to feed on higher slopes in the summer season.
Pandas are often seen eating in a relaxed sitting posture, with their hind legs stretched out before them. They may appear sedentary, but they are skilled tree-climbers and efficient swimmers.
Giant pandas are solitary. They have a highly developed sense of smell that males use to avoid each other and to find females for mating in the spring. After a five-month pregnancy, females give birth to a cub or two, though they cannot care for both twins. The blind infants weigh only 5 ounces (142 grams) at birth and cannot crawl until they reach three months of age. They are born white, and develop their much loved coloring later.
There are only about 1,000 giant pandas left in the wild. Perhaps 100 pandas live in zoos, where they are always among the most popular attractions. Much of what we know about pandas comes from study of these zoo animals, because their wild cousins are so rare and elusive.

-This article was copied from here.

Sponsor/Adopt a Panda!

2011-02-26T07:25:00.000-08:00

The panda is the rarest of all species of bears and there are currently only 1,100 giant pandas in existence in the wild today. As a species, the panda faces a great many obstacles towards sustaining a growth in population.
The panda is facing a loss of its natural habit as large areas of natural forest have been cleared for agriculture and timber and as the Chinese population is growing, it is forcing the panda population out of their natural habitat. Indeed, between 1974 – 1988, the panda’s mountainous bamboo habitat has in fact shrunk by half.

Hunting is a particular problem. The panda shares its habitat with a number of species, which are very valuable to hunters supplying the booming medicinal trade in South-east Asia. Deer antlers, bear gall and musk deer pods are sought by poachers. It is these same poachers that litter the mountainsides with wire snares and some of these (inadvertently or otherwise) trap the panda. Even though trading in panda skins carries the death penalty in China, this rare and secretive animal is often prized by collectors for its skin.

It is the focus of the WWF to be at the forefront of panda conservation. They finance the training of local rangers to help prevent poaching, and work in conjunction with the Chinese government to fund panda projects such as research laboratories and captive breeding centres.

By sponsoring a panda through the WWF panda adoption scheme you are actively helping to maintain and prevent the panda species from becoming extinct. If you adopt a panda you really can make a difference to their survival prospects.
Click here to sponsor/adopt a panda!