As of the end of 2015, China had 1,864 giant pandas in the wild, up from about 1,100 in 2000, with 422 in captivity, according to the government.
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The IUCN has officially changed the giant panda’s status from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its Red List of Threatened Species, as the population of these creatures has apparently increased by 17 percent during the decade up to 2014.
The panda population reached an estimated low of less than 1,000 in the 1980s due to poaching and deforestation until Beijing threw its full weight behind preserving the animal, which has been sent to zoos around the world as a gesture of Chinese diplomatic goodwill.
Zhang Zhihe, chief of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan, said wild pandas survive exclusively along the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in six mountain ranges in China.
However, don’t pop the champagne bottles quite yet, as the giant panda is still listed as a “vulnerable” species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
Experts warned, however, that the good news for pandas could be short-lived.
The WWF has worked for decades to save giant pandas by developing reserves and working with local communities to establish sustainable livelihoods and minimize their impact on forests, the organization said.
The IUCN says that to protect pandas in the wild in future, it is critical that effective forest protection measures are continued and emerging threats are addressed. There are now 67 reserves throughout China dedicated to preserving two thirds of the global panda population.
The most recent Red List also contained bad news for the Eastern gorilla, which was placed on the critically endangered list. Arriving in 1999, Lun Lun most recently gave birth to her sixth and seventh cubs on September 3.
Its population has seen a 70 percent decline in the last 20 years due to illegal hunting, leaving the species a step from extinction. Three other species of great ape – the Western Gorilla, Bornean Orangutan and Sumatran Orangutan – are also now listed as “Critically Endangered”.
Eastern Gorillas – made up of two subspecies, Grauer’s gorillas and mountain gorillas – are found in the rainforests of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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There are now fewer than 5,000 Eastern gorillas in the wild.
