The giant panda bear is native to the
mountainous regions of central and southern
China. The giant panda would have once
inhabited more lowland regions like jungles
and grassy plains although the giant panda is
now restricted to the higher mountain areas
due to increased farming and habitat
destruction in the lowlands.
The giant panda bear is an omnivore eating a
range of things from honey, to fish and small
mammals. The giant panda bear’s diet
consists of roughly 95% bamboo, which the
panda needs to eat as the bamboo plays a
crucial part in the giant panda’s digestion
and water intake.
Today the giant panda is considered to be an
endangered species with only 1,500 giant
pandas thought to be left in the wild. Giant
pandas are fairly docile bears as the giant
panda rarely comes into contact with people
in the wild. However, the giant pandas have
been known to attack humans when
confronted particularly when the giant panda
is kept in captivity.
In recent years that giant panda has become
an extremely important icon for China, a
country who generally regard the dragon as
being its main national emblem. The Chinese
people have begun to use the giant panda
more and more on flags and emblems and
are keen to help to promote the conservation
of the giant panda.
Information
O The giant panda has an insatiable appetite
for bamboo. A typical animal eats half the
day — a full 12 out of every 24 hours — and
relieves itself dozens of times a day. It takes
12.5 kilograms of bamboo to satisfy a giant
panda's daily dietary needs, and it hungrily
plucks the stalks with elongated wrist bones
that function rather like thumbs. Pandas will
sometimes eat birds or rodents as well.
The cuddly looking giant panda is the rarest
and most endangered species of the bear
family. Its distinctive black and white
markings, fluffy coat and ponderous,
waddling walk endear the giant panda to
people all around the world. These awesome
animals are among the world's most
threatened species with only about 1,600 left
in the wild. Giant pandas can't continue to
survive in the wild without human protection.
Where Giant Pandas Live
Giant pandas are solitary. They have a highly
Wild giant pandas inhabit a mountainous
developed sense of smell that males use to
area in southwest China including Gansu,
avoid each other and to find females for
Shaanxi, and Sichuan provinces. In the past
mating in the spring. After a five-month
they roamed a much larger area that
pregnancy, females give birth to a cub or two,
included the lowlands, but human
though they cannot care for both twins. The
development drove them into the mountains
blind infants weigh only 142 grams at birth
and continues to threaten the wild population
and cannot crawl until they reach three
on unprotected lands. Wild giant pandas
months of age. They are born white, and
currently live only in the dense bamboo
develop their much loved colouring later.
underbrush of the mountain forests.
There are only about 1,500 giant pandas left
Wild pandas live only in remote, mountainousin the wild. Perhaps 200 pandas live in zoos,
regions in central China. These high bamboo where they are always among the most
forests are cool and wet—just as pandas like popular attractions. Much of what we know
it. They may climb as high as 3,962 metres toabout pandas comes from study of these zoo
feed on higher slopes in the summer season. animals, because their wild cousins are so
rare and elusive.
By Joseph!
My photos were taken at the Adelaide Zoo,
South Australia – with permission