Endangered Animals -Panda-
Pandas are one of the cutest creatures with their sweet and friendly black and white fur. Let’s take a look at the story of this creature.
Living in southwest China, the giant panda is one of the cutest animals in the world. With its distinctive black and white fur, the panda is admired by the world and considered a national treasure in China. While giant pandas are on all fours, they average 60–100 cm in length and 1–2 m in length. Males can weigh between 100–115 kg, being larger than females. One of the panda’s interesting evolutionary features is its protruding wrist bone that acts like a thumb. This helps pandas hold the bamboo while eating it with their strong molars. Bamboo makes up almost the entire diet of the panda. Because of the low nutritional value of bamboo, pandas need to eat 10–20 kg (20–40 lb.) per day. Sometimes pandas eat other available foods, including small rodents, eggs, fish, and other flora. Bamboo provides a good amount of water, but pandas need to supplement it with fresh water on a daily basis. Unfortunately, of these sweet and friendly animals, there are only 2060 pandas living in the wild, with giant pandas still living, considered vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN Red List.Because pandas breed so infrequently, populations are very difficult to recover from such a low point. But don’t be discouraged by this, there were as few as 1,114 pandas in China in the 1980s. But the most recent survey in 2014 estimated 1,864 pandas living in the wild. After 30 years of slow but steady progress, the IUCN changed the panda’s status on the Red List of Threatened Species. The decision is an appreciation of the hard work of the Chinese government, local communities, nature conservation personnel and the WWF over many years. But the panda’s long-term future is not yet secure. In other words, when we protect pandas, we are always protecting other animals that live around them, such as multicolored pheasants, golden monkeys, takin and crested ibis. Pandas also provide sustainable economic benefits to many local communities through ecotourism.
