The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which surveys almost 83,000 species as part of its Red List of Threatened Species, reported the reclassification this week during a meeting in Hawaii along with a slew of other changes.
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“For over 50 years, the giant panda has been the globe’s most beloved conservation icon as well as the symbol of WWF”. The organization has observed increased forest cover in China, providing more potential habitat to giant pandas. But climate change still threatens to eliminate more than 35% of the panda’s bamboo habitat in the next 80 years; hence the “vulnerable” designation, which means it’s still at risk of extinction.
China banned trading panda skins in 1981, and the enactment of the 1988 Wildlife Protection Law banned poaching and conferred the highest protected status to the animal.
Last year, Mongabay reported that the wild giant panda population totalled 1,864 individuals, up by 268 from the previous estimate in 2008.
A census in the mid-’70s found only 2,459 pandas in China, according to the World Wildlife Foundation, which alerted the government to the species’ precarious position.
The IUCN report 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”.
The first giant pandas arrived in D.C.in 1972, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Eastern gorillas populate the mountainous forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, northwest Rwanda and southwest Uganda, making them another victim of the region’s civil wars.
Unfortunately, the new report also brought bad news for the Eastern Gorilla: the world’s largest living primate has experienced a 70% decline in its population over the past two decades because of hunting and civil wars in the region of Africa that it calls home, media reports indicate.
Other great apes – the western gorilla, Bornean orangutan and Sumatran orang-utan – now share the status of ‘Critically Endangered, ‘ while chimpanzees and bonobo are listed as ‘Endangered’.
The status change means that now four of six great apes are critically endangered; the chimpanzee and bonobo are considered endangered.
While pandas are retreating from the brink of extinction, Eastern gorillas are inching closer to the edge.
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The IUCN Red List includes 82,954 species, including both plants and animals. Conservation action does work and we have increasing evidence of it.
