Myths about this remarkable animal abound, but the reality is that the giant panda is endangered for the same reasons that nature is imperiled throughout China, and indeed throughout the world. Human utilization of natural resources has exceeded sustainable limits, and habitat for wildlife is vanishing. Despite encouraging progress, China's conservation policies and actions still need to be strengthened to meet the enormous challenges of saving the giant panda. As few as 1,000 of the black and white bear-like animals remain in the wild, all of which are confined to the mountainous bamboo forests of southwestern China. Pandas feed almost exclusively on the stems and leaves of bamboo.
Pandas are robust, bear-like animals with a distinctive black and white coat.
They have a head and body length of 120 to 150 cm, and weigh between 85 and 110 kg. Specialized physical features include broad, flat molars, modified for crushing, and an enlarged wrist bone functioning as an opposable thumb - both adaptations for eating bamboo stems. Fossil evidence has demonstrated that the giant panda was once widespread in southern and eastern China and in neighboring Myanmar and North Vietnam. Today however, according to the last panda census in the mid-1980's, there may be as few as 1,000 giant pandas occupying about 13,000 km2 of habitat scattered across six mountain ranges in southwestern China. This diminishing range first occurred through climatic change, but in recent centuries this decline has been caused by increased human settlement.