The Giant Panda
Ailuropoda melanoleuca
We are the giant panda.
The bacteria in our digestive systems helps us digest it.
The occasional twin and triplet cubs face intraspecific competition between each other as the mother only produces milk to raise one.
We are an endangered species.
Our population is dependent on how much bamboo exists and how many species are available. Different bamboos grow during different times of the year.
Natural disasters are devastating no matter how many pandas exist. Especially when the bamboo is affected too.
One predator however is one that cannot be eluded by age or size. Humans.
They poach us for our large and unique pelts, they hunt us to secure our bamboo, the desperate ones eat us.
We face interspecific competition as they destroy our forests to create villages, turn our bamboo into lumber, and take our water for themselves.
Similarly to a natural disaster, this is a threat to all pandas.
Some of us live in zoos where we are showered with love and affection. They are the lucky few captured and imprisoned to mimic our old natural lifestyle.
These are significant results for a short period of time, especially when compared to other endangered or previous endangered species.
We are an endangered species and it will be many years before the damage is undone.
Hope was a foreign concept as humans were all that we saw.