GIANT PANDA

GIANT PROBLEM

Food and Habitat

  • Pandas eat bamboo, a hard long grass.
  • It is found in central Chinese forests.
  • Giant Pandas belong to the carnivora order but are 99% vegetarian for bamboo.
  • Very rarely hunt for small rodents or fish.
  • Humans are the main predators but as babies, leopards are dangerous.
  • Wild ones live in central Chinese mountains where the cool, wet, and temperate climate is, along with bamboo forests.
  • Will also rarely eat windflowers and grasses.
  • Giving birth, females will stay in a cave or a hollow tree.
  • Once older, many roam the forest alone.
(Wiki, Yans1, WBP, WChina)

Animal Description

  • The Giant Panda is mammal with a black and white fur coat.
  • Black fur is usually on the eyes, muzzle, legs, arms, and shoulders. The rest is white fur.
  • The males can weigh 350lbs. while the females weigh no more than 280lbs.
  • They can grow to be 4-6ft. long, including a 5.1in. tail, and 1ft.10" to 2ft.10" up to the shoulders.
  • Communication is by leaving a dark, sticky substance on a tree which the next panda will receive information about the first's age, gender, and reproductive status.
  • 11 vocal sounds are also used by pandas.
  • The pandas also have larger jaw muscles than other bears, do not hibernate, and have a sixth digit on each hand.
(Wiki, eH2)

Adaptions

  • Some people suspect the black and white coloring is camouflage against rocks.
  • They have very strong jaws and molars and jaws for eating bamboo.
  • They also have a sixth digit that serves as a thumb for holding bamboo.
  • In the winter they move to higher elevations where the bamboo is for they don't hibernate do to their diet.
  • They live most of their life's alone except for mating season and when the female raises the young.
  • In the event of a animal predator, they climb a tree with their long and sharp nails and wait for it to leave.
(Wiki, WChina, Yans2)

Why It's Endangered

  • Continual habitat loss for industry in China is creating a bad situation for these animals. It takes away their food supply and gives them less space to roam.
  • Poaching, illegal hunting (usually for their fur coats), is also taking out the population.
  • Another factor that's very important is the very low birthrate in both the wild and captivity.

(Wiki)

What's Being Done

  • The Chinese government is working with WWF to save this species. This includes research on improving bamboo growing.
  • Public awareness is also important to this.
  • International breeding programs and more panda reserves (current number of 26) are helping.
  • Pandas also need some change in isolation to strengthen the genetic material.
  • Lack of breeding is a huge problem so research for insemination is key.
(Cha1)