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The giant panda is considered an endangered species by the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Animals. As of 2004, there were 1,600 pandas in the wild, with 300 living in zoos and breeding centers. Its protected by China's Wildlife Protection Law, under which those convicted of poaching pandas or smuggling panda skins face life in prison or even death. Like many large animals, pandas have low reproductive rates, which makes it difficult for the population to recover when pandas die. (Female pandas can realistically only reproduce every other year, and will typically raise only five to eight cubs in a lifetime.) Pandas face several threats to their survival. Initially, the panda population was threatened by habitat loss due to logging. (Their habitat declined from about 12.6 million acres, or 5.1 million hectares, in the 1950s to 3.2 acres, or 1.3 million hectares, in the 1990s.) Habitat loss began to slow in 1998, partly as a result of government bans on logging in panda ranges.
Despite large protected areas designated for the panda, pandas still face threats, including human population encroaching on their natural habitat and climate change.
Odd facts:
Pandas have a pseudo thumb of sorts. This extra digit is actually not a thumb but a flap of skin covering the animal's wrist bone. These thumbs help the panda grasp bamboo sticks.
A panda cub is one-nine-hundredth the size of its mother, making it the smallest newborn relative to its mother's size, after marsupials such as the kangaroo, which is the size of a jelly bean at birth.
Unlike other bears living in temperate climates, the giant panda does not hibernate.
Following ancient Chinese tradition, panda cubs are not named until they have been alive for 100 days.
Despite large protected areas designated for the panda, pandas still face threats, including human population encroaching on their natural habitat and climate change.
Odd facts:
Pandas have a pseudo thumb of sorts. This extra digit is actually not a thumb but a flap of skin covering the animal's wrist bone. These thumbs help the panda grasp bamboo sticks.
A panda cub is one-nine-hundredth the size of its mother, making it the smallest newborn relative to its mother's size, after marsupials such as the kangaroo, which is the size of a jelly bean at birth.
Unlike other bears living in temperate climates, the giant panda does not hibernate.
Following ancient Chinese tradition, panda cubs are not named until they have been alive for 100 days.