The endangered giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is endemic to th e mountains of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces in China. The species had nu mbered over 2000 animals in early 1970s, but declined to no more th...The endangered giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is endemic to th e mountains of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces in China. The species had nu mbered over 2000 animals in early 1970s, but declined to no more than 1,000 anim als fragmented into perhaps 32 subpopulations in late 1990s as the result of num erous detrimental forces such as habitat shrinking, poaching and bamboo flowerin g. The mass flowering and followed die-off of bamboo played key roles in the dec lination of panda population in the past three decades. It trigged the starvatio n and following high mortality of giant pandas in 1970s over Min Mountains and i n 1980s across Qionglai Mountains in Sichuan Province. The situation of survivor ship is made worse by the fact that the panda habitat is fragmented into many sm all 'islands', each containing only a few pandas. Such small, isolated panda pop ulations are rendered even more vulnerable to extinction form threats such as ha bitat degradation, natural disaster, disease, and the deleterious effects of inb reeding. So restoring the panda habitat and reintroduction pandas to their histo rical habitat might be an important issue for protecting the giant panda in wild .展开更多
文摘The endangered giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is endemic to th e mountains of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces in China. The species had nu mbered over 2000 animals in early 1970s, but declined to no more than 1,000 anim als fragmented into perhaps 32 subpopulations in late 1990s as the result of num erous detrimental forces such as habitat shrinking, poaching and bamboo flowerin g. The mass flowering and followed die-off of bamboo played key roles in the dec lination of panda population in the past three decades. It trigged the starvatio n and following high mortality of giant pandas in 1970s over Min Mountains and i n 1980s across Qionglai Mountains in Sichuan Province. The situation of survivor ship is made worse by the fact that the panda habitat is fragmented into many sm all 'islands', each containing only a few pandas. Such small, isolated panda pop ulations are rendered even more vulnerable to extinction form threats such as ha bitat degradation, natural disaster, disease, and the deleterious effects of inb reeding. So restoring the panda habitat and reintroduction pandas to their histo rical habitat might be an important issue for protecting the giant panda in wild .
