Giant Pandas Not ‘Endangered’ Anymore, Conservation Group Says

Marco Lambertini, the director general of the WWF, said in a statement, “The recovery of the panda shows that when science, political will and engagement of local communities come together, we can save wildlife and also improve biodiversity”. Climate change is expected to wipe out more than one-third of the panda’s bamboo habitat.

Zhang Hemin, of the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda, known in China as the “father of pandas”, told the official Xinhua news agency that this was a hasty move. China’s plans to expand existing conservation policy for the species is a positive step, said the IUCN, and must be strongly supported to ensure its effective implementation.

Four out of five species of great apes are now listed as critically endangered as populations have declined in recent years largely due to hunting, according to a new update from an worldwide conservation group.

The animal which fronts the World Wide Fund for Nature’s logo and stands as China’s unofficial mascot has had its population stabilised by conservationists targeting bamboo.

Meanwhile, IUCN downgraded the eastern gorilla, a victim of African civil wars and hunting, to “critically endangered”.

The baby giant panda at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo now has a name: Bei Bei (BAY-BAY), which means “precious treasure”, a nod to his sister’s name, Bao Bao, which has the same meaning.

The IUCN Red List includes 82,954 species – both plants and animals – and undergoes a major update every four years.

Shi Xiaogang, of the Wolong National Nature Reserve in southwestern Sichuan province, China’s main panda conservation centre, said pandas still needed continuous protection, according to Xinhua.

The answer to these questions is not black or white – pun intended – because it is far from clear what the best actions are to take in order to conserve our environment.

The wild giant panda population is broken up into 33 isolated groups, some with fewer than 10 individuals, severely limiting the gene pool.

The main population of Eastern gorillas, the biggest primates weighing up to about 200 kg (440 lb), tumbled to an estimated 3,800 animals in 2015 from 16,900 in 1994, according to the report issued at an IUCN congress in Hawaii.

But those same authorities are anxious that the classification change may result in a possibly critical loss of focus.

A census in the mid-’70s found only 2,459 pandas in China, according to the World Wildlife Foundation, which alerted the government to the species’ precarious position.