What Are the Causes of Giant Panda Endangerment?

Development and Agriculture

• Pandas can only live in a very specific habitat because their diet consists primarily of bamboo, which only grows at altitudes of between 1,640 and 10,170 feet. Pandas also need extensive territories. Because of China's expanding human population and rapidly developing industry, panda habitat in lower altitudes has lost ground to agriculture and development for housing, transportation and factories.

Logging and Plant Harvesting

• At higher altitudes, the main loss of habitat comes from logging, although logging of panda habitat was banned in 1998. However, large amounts had already been cleared. Illegal logging and harvesting of plants in panda habitat still occurs.

Bamboo Dieback

• Bamboo naturally dies back every few decades or so. Pandas could cope with this in the past by moving to new regions. The problem now is that because their habitat is so fragmented, many pandas do not have this option. When the bamboo in their habitat periodically dies, the pandas lose their primary food source and cannot migrate to new bamboo groves.

Inbreeding

• A consequence of habitat fragmentation combined with very low numbers is that most pandas live in tiny, isolated populations. Such populations have a small gene pool and inbreeding is inevitable. This reduces the resistance of pandas to disease and impacts adaptability to their environment.

Poaching

• In the past, the hunting of pandas for their skins was a serious problem. However, as of 2011, this particular cause of panda endangerment is not a major threat. The species is heavily protected in China, with harsh penalties for killing a panda ranging from a 10-year prison sentence to life imprisonment or the death penalty under certain circumstances. With the market for panda skins and parts disappearing, there is little economic reason for poachers to take the risk, and few do. However, pandas still die or are injured in traps set for other animals such as black bears. Because there are so few pandas left, even a small number of deaths has an impact.