The improvement follows decades of conservation work in China, including intensive efforts by the Chinese government to replant bamboo forests – the bears’ main source of food and shelter – and launch captive breeding programs and partnerships with zoos.
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As chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Swaisgood was the primary author of the report and was responsible for helping to reach the decision. The number of pandas in the wild in southern China has grown significantly this century: up to 1,864 in 2014 from 1,596 a decade earlier, according to official figures.
The Giant Panda, a Chinese national treasure and a symbol for the World Wildlife Fund and species conservation, was once on the brink of extinction.
The good news could be short-lived, however.
Meanwhile, partnerships between the Chinese government and worldwide conservation nongovernmental organizations and zoos have spread out research, conservation and breeding efforts.
A surge in illegal hunting is threatening the eastern gorilla, the world’s largest primate, an worldwide conservation group has said.
“Critical Endangered status will raise the profile of this gorilla subspecies and bring attention to its plight”, Plumptre said in a statement about the listing.
It adds though while China’s State Forestry Administration should be patting itself on the back, it “fully realises that more work needs to be done to further Panda conservation and to avoid losing ground so painstakingly gained”.
Four of the six great apes – Eastern Gorilla, Western Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan – are now listed as Critically Endangered, whilst the Chimpanzee and Bonobo are listed as Endangered, the report said.
Highlighting the plight of the great apes, the organisation says the Eastern Gorilla has moved from “Endangered” to “Critically Endangered” due to a “devastating population decline of more than 70 percent in 20 years”, primarily due to illegal hunting.
Populations of Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri – formerly known as the eastern lowland gorilla) totaled only around 3,800 individuals in a survey that was released this past spring – a 77 percent reduction in a single generation that easily exceeds the drop required to be deemed critically endangered.
In effect this means the giant panda still face a high risk of extinction in the wild.
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Along with the giant panda, conservation successes include boosting populations of Tibetan antelopes, and the fortunes of the greater stick-nest rat and the bridled nailtail wallaby which are both found in Australia.
