Cute, Cuddly and Endangered: Giant Pandas

Cute, cuddly and Endangered: Giant Pandas

 

Pandas, also known as giant pandas, is said to be the world’s rarest mammal. There are only 1.000 of them survive in the wild. They live in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan Province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

Habitat loss and climate change are the largest threat to the existence of giant pandas.

Habitat loss or habitat destruction is the process in which the natural habitat is unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that used to be in the site are destroyed or displaced,reducing biodiversity.

Climate change is the change in average weather conditions or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions. It is caused by different factors like oceanic processes, plate tectonics and volcanic eruptions, and human-induced alterations of the natural world.

A recent study revealed that the effect that climate change could have on bamboo growth. “The researchers discovered that while some types of bamboo reduced in range due to global warming, others actually increased.” A panda spends almost 12 hours a day eating and its diet is 99% bamboo. They need to have at least 2 species of bamboo where it lives, or it will die. When all the bamboo in their area dies, pandas starve because of their inability to move to new areas where bamboo species thrive. Pandas are shy and they don’t venture into areas where people live. This restricts them to a very limited areas. Farming, logging and other activities of people, cause the habitat of pandas to shrink and maybe soon enough, disappear.

*Note that the pictures that were used in this post are not mine. They were  found with the use of Google

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/creaturefeature/panda/

http://www.brighthub.com/environment/science-environmental/articles/15475.aspx

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/aboutcc/problems/impacts/species/

Checked by Prof. Crisencio Paner

About savethee

Bernice Adrianne C. Go 19 years old Thomasian Judenite Advertising Arts (3AD8)

View all posts by savethee →