Giant Pandas no longer on endangered species list

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which surveys almost 83,000 species as part of its Red List of Threatened Species, reported the reclassification this week during a meeting in Hawaii along with a slew of other changes.

He says the positive change in the giant pandas’ status demonstrates how “science, political will and engagement of local communities” can work together.

Partnerships between the Chinese government and global conservation groups and zoos have also brought giant pandas to zoos worldwide. But climate change still threatens to eliminate more than 35% of the panda’s bamboo habitat in the next 80 years; hence the “vulnerable” designation, which means it’s still at risk of extinction. Grauer’s gorilla, one subspecies of eastern gorilla found mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has lost 77 percent of its population in the past two decades, declining from 16,900 in 1994 to just 3,800 in 2015, the IUCN said.

“The Chinese have done a great job in investing in Panda habitats, expanding and setting up new reserves”, Ginette Hemley, senior vice-president for wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said in an interview with BBC News.

Of the great ape species – the Eastern gorilla, Western gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan, Chimpanzee and Bonobo – only the Chimpanzee and Bonobo are not in critically endangered list but are listed as endangered.

Once poorly understood, the Giant Panda received an explosion of scientific interest across many disciplines in recent decades. There are only 1,864 giant pandas left in the wild. Twenty years later, we became the first worldwide organization to work in China.

Last year, Mongabay reported that the wild giant panda population totalled 1,864 individuals, up by 268 from the previous estimate in 2008.

“The Giant Panda will remain a conservation-dependent species for the foreseeable future”, it adds. That list is maintained and monitored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Poaching has been blamed as one of the main causes of the severe decrease in the number of gorillas in the wild.

The IUCN Red List includes 82,954 species, both plants and animals.

It took about 50 years for the Giant Panda, symbol of WWF and worldwide icon of endangered animals, to be lifted from its endangered status.