The number of giant pandas around the world rose by nearly 17% within a decade, reaching 2,000.
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One of the world’s most iconic endangered species is no longer on the endangered species list!
It was back in 1990 that the giant panda was placed on the endangered species list, but with the decrease in poaching and an expansion of the #Animals’ protected natural habitat, finally things are improving.
The eastern Gorilla (Gorilla beringei) belongs to the species of the genus Gorilla and considered the largest living primate. There are now fewer than 5,000 Eastern gorillas in the wild.
The giant panda, long a symbol of the conservation movement, is no longer listed as endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The Eastern gorilla joins the Western gorilla – the type of gorilla Harambe was – Bornean Orangutan, and Sumatran Orangutan in the “critically endangered” category.
Andrew Plumptre of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the lead author of the revised listing, said that acknowledging its threatened status may help us to turn the population around.
The IUCN Red List includes 82,954 species – including both plants and animals.
The East Africa gorillas have moved one step closer to extinction after the IUCN changed their status to “critically endangered” following a population decline of 70% in the last 20 years. Knowing that the panda is now a step further from extinction is an exciting moment for everyone committed to conserving the world’s wildlife and their habitats. There are now only 5000 of these large great apes know as Gorilla berengei in the world. Various diseases and climate change also have added external stress ape populations. “Grauer’s Gorilla (G. b. graueri), one subspecies of Eastern Gorilla – has lost 77 per cent of its population since 1994, declining from 16,900 individuals to just 3,800 in 2015”. “Critically Endangered”, “Endangered” and “Threatened” are all classified as threatened species (IUCN 2016).
“Illegal hunting and habitat loss are still major threats driving many mammal species towards extinction”, said Carlo Rondinini, coordinator of the mammal assessment at Sapienza University of Rome.
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The bears, China’s national icon, were once widespread throughout southern and eastern China but, due to expanding human populations and development, are now limited to areas that still contain bamboo forests.
