Ever since its inception in the 1960’s, pandas have been on the IUCN’s Red List of endangered species ever since its inception in the 1960’s due to habitat loss and poaching threats in their native China.
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The status change is the result of over 30 years of conservation efforts aimed at helping the animal. About 1,864 pandas live in the wild today, according to the latest survey – a 17 percent increase since 2004.
Meanwhile, climate change is predicted to wipe out more than one third of the panda’s bamboo habitat, a situation that will only be exacerbated by insufficient funding and technical support. The WWF says the 67 panda reserves in the country now protect almost two-thirds of all wild pandas.
Here’s some great news to pad your otherwise dreary day – the Giant Panda is officially no longer considered an endangered animal.
But the WWF, whose logo has been a panda since 1961, celebrated the panda’s re-classification, saying it proved that aggressive investment does pay off ‘when science, political will and engagement of local communities come together’.
WWF said that this change in status for the Giant Panda is an example “demonstrating how an integrated approach can help save our planet’s vanishing biodiversity”.
Since then we’ve been working with the government on initiatives to save giant pandas and their habitat, including helping to establish an integrated network of giant panda reserves and wildlife corridors to connect isolated panda populations.
IUCN said the eastern gorilla, which lives in mountainous forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, has been a victim of the region’s civil wars.
The statement also pointed out that pandas in some regions are still facing a survival crisis.
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 past year. The other subspecies, the mountain gorilla, is faring slightly better.
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The Eastern Gorilla (Gorilla beringei), which is made up of two subspecies, has moved from Endangered to Critically Endangered, one step away from Extinction – due to a devastating population decline of more than 70 per cent in 20 years.
