Giant Panda Endangerment

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Giant Panda Endangerment
Introduction
Giant pandas are listed under the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Animals as “Endangered” (Mace 1993). This is the second highest category on species threat scale. In China, the giant panda is protected at local, provincial and national levels by China Wildlife Protection Law.
The reason they are endangered
The reason the giant panda is endangered is mainly because they always need to feed off an abundant load of bamboos to survive and like any mammals with huge bodies, they do have very low reproductive rates and their populations are increasingly becoming dwindled due to unlawful killing. Studies have shown that these animals have become threatened due to the extensive human activities that take place within their range across the Qinling Mountains in Southwest China.
Major threats
For a long period of time, probably centuries, loss of habitat and fragmentation of the same have had the most impact on the survival of these Pandas (Lai & Olessen 2013). As documented, in the 1950s, the habitat of the Panda was an estimated 5 million hectares. The logging activities that took place for the next half a century culminating in the nineties led to the shrinking of the habitat to a mere 1 million hectares.
Climate change is another huge threat to the panda as Gillespie (2001) documents. With the unpredictable weather patterns that have significantly affected the future availability of shelter and food for the animals. There is fragmentation of forest cover limits and this has led to devastating impact on the overall population of the giant panda.
Solutions
With an estimated 300,000 people living within the panda ranges the unprecedented pressure on these animals has never been higher. In 1998, the government introduced a ban on logging within the panda ranges and new state corporation – The National Forest Protection Project – was created to reduce the adverse effects that were already experienced, writes Glatston (2010). Today the figures of Panda habitats have risen to about 5 million hectares.
There are now set protected areas even though they still do not provide adequate protection of the healthy populations of the great panda. The natural reserves only provid...