Climate change is predicted to wipe out a third of the panda’s natural bamboo habitat in the next 80 years, effectively “reversing the gains made during the last two decades”.
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Meanwhile, the panda seems to be showing some hopeful signs and has been removed from the “endangered” list to the “vulnerable” one. The animals live in small, isolated groups of as few as 10 pandas that struggle to reproduce and face the risk of disappearing altogether, the agency said.
Marco Lambertini, WWF Director General, said in a press statement: “The recovery of the panda shows that when science, political will and engagement of local communities come together, we can save wildlife and also improve biodiversity”.
The list still includes almost 83,000 species over all with 23,928 species almost extinct.
The decision by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) means that four out of the six great apes – both types of gorilla and both types of orangutan – are feared to be on the brink of extinction.
Giant pandas are no longer endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), after a population increase moved them away from the risky end of the list.
The organization praised the measures implemented by the Chinese government to conserve this species, naming them a “positive step” that “must be strongly supported”.
A female Eastern Gorilla seen here with an infant. The Grauer’s gorilla population dropped from 16,900 in 1994 to 3,800 in 2015.
The Eastern gorilla joins the Western gorilla – the type of gorilla Harambe was – Bornean Orangutan, and Sumatran Orangutan in the “critically endangered” category. The IUCN estimates that adding giant panda cubs to that number brings the total population to about 2,060.
Nearly one third – 23,928 – are threatened with extinction, it said.
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.
Killing or capture of great apes is illegal; yet hunting represents the greatest threat to Grauer’s Gorillas.
But he warned the success needed to be placed in the wider context of a 52% average decline in populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish around the globe between 1970 and 2010.
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“Hope is fundamentally a call to action, and the panda’s story is one that I hope will serve to inspire increased collaborative efforts to save many, many more species, she said”.
