The species has has officially been moved off the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species’ list of endangered animals.
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ANIMAL conservation experts have lauded China’s efforts to save the giant panda and increase its population.
“The improved status confirms that the Chinese government’s efforts to conserve this species are effective”.
According to the latest nationwide estimate, there were 1,864 giant pandas living in the wild in China in 2014 – up from roughly 1,600 in 2004.
The list still includes almost 83,000 species over all with 23,928 species almost extinct.
It may be the poster animal for endangered species awareness, but it appears the giant panda has bounced back.
Reasons for the decline in populations include poaching, habitat loss, and civil unrest, disease and climate change, says the IUCN.
The World Wildlife Fund, which is represented by a panda logo, said the announcement was “a welcome piece of good news for the world’s threatened wildlife”. Wild panda numbers have slowly rebounded as China cracked down on the skin trade and gradually expanded its protected forest areas to now cover 1.4 million hectares (5,400 square miles).
That leaves the chimpanzee and the bonobo, which are both considered endangered, and are facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
IUCN says: “Previously estimated to number around 16,900 individuals, recent surveys show that Grauer’s Gorilla numbers have dropped to only 3,800 individuals – a 77% reduction in just one generation”.
“A takeaway point we would like to emphasise is we are not journeying in the right direction with respect to species conservation”, Andersen said.
The IUCN said China’s plan to expand its conservation effort for pandas “is a positive step and must be strongly supported to ensure its effective implementation”.
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Grauer’s Gorilla, one of the Eastern Gorilla subspecies, has experienced a fall in population from 16,900 individuals in 1994 to an estimated 3,800 previous year. The listing has put the gorilla species (eastern and western) as well as the other four subspecies as critically endangered, and near extinction. It’s nearly impossible to account for every single plant and animal on the planet, but the World Wildlife Fund estimates anywhere between 200 and 100,000 species go extinct every year. The giant panda become endangered species in 1990.
