She turns to leave, abruptly changes her mind, and, giving two loud roars and several snorts, trots toward us. There are situations when it is unwise to test whether an animal is just bluffing-and this is such a case. I crash through the bamboo to a nearby tree, a small one six inches in diameter, and scramble up. Not until I am sitting on a low branch eight feet above ground do I look back. . . . Zhen hesitates a moment, first starting to follow Hu Jinchu, then veering toward my tree.
Pandas are more susceptible to extinction than many other animals because of their all-bamboo diet.
Lacking the adaptability of bears, coyotes and other scavengers, they are tied inexorably to the steadily shrinking bamboo forest. Natural bamboo die-offs, which occur periodically, can decimate a local population. With a relatively low metabolism, pandas spend most of their time foraging and resting, ranging less than a mile a day, putting away up to 40 pounds of bamboo shoots or stems daily. Poachers who illegally hunt musk deer sometimes kill a panda in their snares, a preventable disaster that befell one of Schaller's collared animals. It was a silence far louder than the usual chatter.