Ailuropoda Melanoleuca, The Giant Panda

The living organism I will be researching on is the Ailuropoda melanoleuca, the Giant panda. The giant panda, a black-and-white bear, has a body typical of bears. It has black fur on ears, eye patches, muzzle, legs, and shoulders. The rest of the animal's coat is white. Their thick, wooly coat helps to keep them warm in their cool mountain homes or forests of its habitat. What do pandas eat? A wild giant panda’s diet consists of other grasses and occasional small rodents or musk deer fawns. Its diet consists almost entirely of the leaves, stems and shoots of various bamboo species. In zoos, giant pandas eat bamboo, sugar cane, rice gruel, a special high-fiber biscuit, carrots, apples, and sweet potatoes (Smithsonian 2004). According to the

In the wild, giant pandas are only found in the remote, mountainous regions of central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces of Southwest China, according to the National Zoo. In this area, there are cool, wet bamboo forests that are perfect for the giant panda's needs. Giant pandas make their dens from hollowed-out logs or stumps of coniferous trees found within the forest. They also live in broadleaf and coniferous forests with a dense understory of bamboo, at elevations between 5,000 and 10,000 feet. Torrential rains or dense mist throughout the year characterizes these forests, often shrouded in heavy clouds. The giant panda species previously ranged throughout most of southern and eastern China, with fossils indicating presence as far south as northern Myanmar and northern Viet Nam and stretching north nearly to Beijing (IUCN SSC Bear Specialist Group). Are giant pandas beneficial to humans? There are very few benefits pandas provide to humans. In the bamboo forests of China, they play a crucial role by spreading seeds and helping the vegetation to grow. The panda’s habitat is also important for the livelihoods of local communities, who use it for food, income, fuel for cooking and heating, and medicine. Unfortunately, these benefits of pandas may not benefit humans much longer since they are on the edge of

I believe people need to prevent what is making them become extinct because the things that could happen could make the population go down. There are problems including habitat loss poaching and fragmentation. WWF explains how creating new reserves and linking up existing panda populations are key to the species' future. The Chinese government, in partnership with WWF, has also developed bamboo corridors to link pockets of forest, allowing the pandas within them to move to new areas find more food and meet more potential breeding mates. But providing the endangered species land isn’t enough. To prevent a species from being extinct, people need to be more aware of the situation. Another way is by Donating to the WWF and other reputable panda organizations will give these organizations a chance to do additional research, perform panda monitoring, change community development by buying wood saving stoves. The need for fuel currently causes locals to ravage the forest home of the pandas. The WWF and others also patrol panda reserve borders to ensure that no poachers, loggers or hunters make it