Giant Panda - biology.

« In 2007 conservationists announced that a parasitic roundworm was responsible for a significant number of the panda deaths reported in the wild since 1990.

Theparasite Baylisascaris schroederi causes the disease visceral larval migrans, which results in bleeding in the lungs, the liver, and the intestines, and can also affect the brain.

It is not known if other recent pandas deaths were caused by the same parasite or by a different contagious disease.

Loss of habitat from deforestation is forcingpandas to live closer together, likely making the animals more vulnerable to the spread of disease. V CONSERVATION EFFORTS The government of China has created more than 50 giant panda reserves, protecting more than 45 percent of the animal’s remaining habitat.

The first and largest ofthese, the Wolong Panda Reserve in Sichuan Province, was established in 1963.

This and six other reserves in the province are now part of the Sichuan Giant PandaSanctuaries, established as a World Heritage Site in 2006.

Covering more than 9,000 sq km (3,475 sq mi), the mountain sanctuary is home to about a third of theworld’s wild giant panda population.

The World Heritage Site designation qualifies the area for additional international aid in managing and protecting the giant pandapopulations there. Overall, nature reserves cover more than 16,000 sq km (more than 6,000 sq mi) of forest in and around the giant panda’s habitat.

However, studies indicate this is notenough to sustain wild giant panda populations in the long term.

The giant panda’s habitat is still fragmented, and the surviving populations are small and isolated fromeach other.

Conservationists hope to establish protected forest corridors linking these isolated populations, in part to help reduce the incidence of inbreeding. A Research on Giant Pandas In 1980 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) became the first international organization to work in China at the Chinese government’s invitation.

The WWF led the first-everfield studies and population surveys of the giant panda.

It also helped establish the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, based in the WolongPanda Reserve.

The WWF adopted the giant panda as its symbol, and the animal became an emblem of wildlife conservation efforts. Detailed information on wild giant panda populations remains scarce, largely due to difficulties in studying and monitoring them in their remote, rugged habitat.

TheWWF and other international organizations have collaborated with Chinese scientists on comprehensive field studies to learn more about the giant panda’s ecology andbehavior.

In recent years more is being learned about the elusive animal and its habitat thanks to more high-tech surveying techniques, such as satellite imagery. Scientists long debated whether giant pandas are more closely related to raccoons or bears.

In the 1980s molecular analyses comparing the proteins and geneticmaterial (DNA) of giant pandas with those of bears and members of the raccoon family fully corroborated the substantial anatomical and fossil evidence classifying thegiant panda as a member of the bear family.

DNA analysis suggests the ancestors of the giant panda branched off from the main bear lineage about 15 million to 18million years ago.

This knowledge has helped scientists develop more effective conservation programs specifically suited to bears. Research is carried out in zoos and breeding centers around the world.

Several zoos in the United States contain giant pandas, including the National Zoo inWashington, D.C., and the San Diego Zoo in California.

These zoos host giant pandas on ten-year loans from China.

In 1998 the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service instituteda policy requiring U.S.

zoos to partner with China in conservation efforts in order to host giant pandas.

Zoos must contribute funds for habitat conservation in China, aswell as designing research and breeding programs to benefit giant pandas. B Breeding Programs Increasing the number of giant pandas in captivity through breeding programs is another important conservation goal.

The zoo population represents an insurancepolicy against the threat of giant pandas going extinct in the wild.

The first giant panda to be born in captivity was at the Beijing Zoo in 1963.

That zoo also producedthe first giant panda birth resulting from artificial insemination in 1978.

However, for many years giant pandas were notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

Newborncubs suffered high mortality rates, with few surviving the first month. More recently, intensive and collaborative research on the giant panda has increased the success of breeding programs.

Improvements have included providing giantpandas in captivity with a more natural, forest-like environment and an enriched diet.

Scientists also improved the formula used to feed newborn cubs, thereby boostingtheir immune systems.

Weak immune systems make young cubs more likely to die of diseases. The Wolong Giant Panda Research Center, the world’s leading facility for captive-breeding efforts, reported unprecedented success in 2005.

That year, 11 female giantpandas at the Wolong center gave birth to 16 cubs, all of which survived.

The new mothers at the center included Hua-mei, a giant panda born in 1999 at the SanDiego Zoo.

Hua-mei was noteworthy in her own right as the first giant panda born in North America to survive to adulthood. VI GIANT PANDA HISTORY Fossil evidence suggests that giant pandas were already widespread in what is now southern and eastern China about 2 million to 3 million years ago, during thePliocene epoch.

Giant panda fossils have also been found in northern Myanmar and northern Vietnam. References to the giant panda are found in ancient Chinese texts.

The Classics of Seas and Mountains, a 2,500-year-old geography book, refers to “a bear-like, black- and-white animal that…lives in the Qionglai Mountains south of Yandao County.” This book refers to the giant panda as mo, an ancient name for the species. The Western world first became aware of the giant panda in 1869, when the French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David reported his observations of a deadhunted specimen.

In 1916 German zoologist Hugo Weigold became the first Westerner to see a live giant panda in the wild.

In 1936 American socialite Ruth Harknessbrought a female cub named Su-lin to the United States.

The first giant panda to reach the country alive, Su-lin was exhibited in the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, gainingworldwide attention and adulation during her short life.

Other giant pandas brought to U.S.

zoos in the years after Su-lin also died early due to lack of knowledge abouthow to properly care for them. In the 1950s the Communist government of China began giving giant pandas as goodwill gifts to other countries, a practice that became known as “panda diplomacy.”For example, China sent two giant pandas to the United States in 1972 following a visit to China by President Richard Nixon.

China currently loans pandas for exhibit inzoos around the world in a program that requires cooperative research and funding for conservation in exchange. Scientific classification: The giant panda was formerly classified as a member of the raccoon family, but is now considered a true bear.

The giant panda belongs to the subfamily Ailuropodinae in the family Ursidae, order Carnivora.

It is classified as Ailuropoda melanoleuca. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation.

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