The giant panda first appeared in the fossil record some three million years ago. The single species, Ailuropoda melanoleuca (the species name means black and white), is found only in China, where it is considered a living national treasure. However, habitat destruction has caused a great many panda deaths in the wild. The panda diet consists mainly of bamboo; to obtain sufficient nourishment, a panda consumes as much as 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of shoots, stems, and leaves daily. In the past 20 years panda territory has been halved; only six forest fragments are left. In addition, a bamboo crisis struck in the mid-1970s when much of the umbrella bamboo in northern Sichuan died. At least 138 animals starved to death. Of the perhaps 1,200 pandas that remain in China today, more than half live in reserves established by the Chinese government. A cooperative effort with the World Wildlife Fund to protect the animals began in 1980.
Illegal hunting of pandas also remains a major threat. Panda pelts sell for more than U.S. $10,000 in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. In 1992 a Shanghai poacher was arrested for attempting to sell a panda pelt and received 12 years in a Chinese prison. More recently, the Chinese government has executed several poachers.
The panda is bearlike in shape, with a chubby body and short, stout, powerful legs. It has a white face with black, oval eye patches and a white body, except for its black legs and a wide band of black across the shoulders. The fur is dense and woolly, which helps keep the animal warm. The animal can grow to a height of six feet and weigh up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms).
Although bamboo is their favorite food, pandas may also eat birds and small rodents. They enjoy meat, but in the winter-bare forest only bamboo provides an easy food source. The panda is anatomically a carnivore with a simple stomach and short intestines adapted for digesting meat. On a diet of bamboo shootswhich are 90 percent waterit may eat some 650 shoots daily. Unable to digest the bamboo efficiently (it digests only about 17 percent of the food it eats), the animal obtains only a few nutrients from its food. The panda has overcome these problems by barely chewing and digesting its food and by passing it through its body in only five to eight hours. So as not to fill itself with useless bulk, the panda prefers the leaves and pencil-thin stems of arrow bamboo, which grows above an elevation of 8,200 feet (2,600 meters), to the tall, thick umbrella bamboo low on the slopes.
The mating season runs from mid-March to early May; the gestation period is variable, from 97 to 163 days. Most births occur in late August or September in a maternity denusually a hollow fir tree. Newborns are about six inches (15 centimeters) long and weigh a mere three to four ounces (85 to 113 grams). The skin is pink and almost naked, and the eyes are sealed until the baby is more than a month old. The mother often gives birth to two cubs, but abandons one to hold, suckle, and take care of the other. So, the birth of a second cub is little more than insurance in the event the firstborn is not viable. Newborn cubs require constant care until they are nearly a month old. As the cub matures, the mother sometimes leaves it alone for as long as 52 hours. The cubs begin to walk at three to four months, to eat bamboo at five to six months, and are fully weaned at eight to nine months. They leave their mothers at about 18 months and attain sexual maturity after five or six years. Pandas can live up to 30 years in captivity.
Although pandas are solitary animals except during mating, they will share all or part of their range with other pandas. Each female panda has an area of about 75 to 100 acres (30 to 40 hectares) in which other females are not welcome. By contrast, several males may share the same range, but they avoid each other except when competing for a female in heat.
Pandas are active for 14 hours a day on the average, most of it spent feeding; they are inactive for ten hours, usually sleeping from two to four hours.
To help preserve the remaining panda habitat the Chinese government, in concert with the World Wide Fund for Nature, is implementing a ten-year plan that would expand the 13 existing reserves and create 14 new ones by relocating 10,000 loggers and farmers who would be paid to move out. The entire effort could cost U.S. 80 million dollars. China has budgeted U.S. 13 million dollars and hopes the rest will come from international conservation groups and other sources. One possibility is new long-term loans of captive pandas for breeding in zoos and parks worldwide. Instead of a few months, the old norm, such loans are being made for ten years and bring at least U.S. 10 million dollars each.