Efforts are intensifying. The Chinese government has elevated giant panda conservation to a higher level than ever before. I think conservationists are working harder than ever before. The quality of reserve management is improving. Things won't just stay the same.
Giant pandas are perhaps the most unusual of the world's eight species of bears.
Their diet consists almost entirely of various bamboo species found in high-mountain areas. No precise numbers exist for how many live in the wild. The last official estimate was made in the 1980s, placing the population at somewhere around 1,000. Chinese survey teams have been in the field since 1999 carrying out a panda census. Results are due in the middle of next year, the WWF said.