Health threats
Pandas face a great number of threats with habitat loss, poaching, and now, health-related issues. Habitat loss is due to natural and human causes: bamboos have a natural semelparous cycle which leads to dynamic density changes3, and humans deforest the area where pandas inhabit. Poaching was a second phase of panda mortality where people hunted pandas for their fur. This was controlled by the government by placing laws preventing poaching of pandas, with penalties of a 10-year or death sentence. The last and current threat to pandas is a health threat, involving a parasite (VLM or roundworm).3
Researchers propose that the parasites infect via a fecal-oral route and is the current cause of panda mortality. Although deaths due to this are lower than the previous two phases2, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is proposed that the increased number of deaths due to parasitic infections is caused by the lack of space (crowding) in habitats. Which makes me wonder, how can we balance trying to increase panda populations and not making it overcrowded? Is enlarging conservation areas a good idea?
Physiology and interbreedability of scattered populations
We need our bamboo!
Panda populations in the wild are confined to small patches of bamboo forest (results of deforestation by humans), which poses as a physical barrier to gene flow between the isolated panda populations. Genetic tests show that pandas in different demographic ranges have genetic differentiation from each other.4 This may be the key to conservation efforts because genetic diversity is what keeps a species from extinction due to faulty genes (which may proliferate and result in infertility, premature deaths, and/or inability to adapt to environmental changes).
More about physiology in Panda Welfare- Physiology section.
Habitat
6 main habitats of pandas with several extant regions
Pandas are an endemic species to China, residing naturally in six mountainous areas. They live at higher elevations and unlike the bears we often see in Canada, they don’t hibernate. They simply descend the mountain to warmer regions during especially cold winters. 1 One study has shown that panda populations are restricted by the availability of bamboo. In the past, pandas could just move to another area with more bamboo, but with the diminishing bamboo forested areas, they have fewer choices. 3 What can we, as humans, do to prevent this natural cycle bamboos have?
Photo credits to Chi King (flickr) and IUCN
1 Lü, Z, Wang, D. & Garshelis, D.L. 2008. Ailuropoda melanoleuca. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on February 2, 2012.
2 Zhang, J.S., Daszak, P., Huang, H.L., Yang, G.Y., Kilpatrick, A.M., Zhang, S. 2007. Parasite Threat to Panda Conservation. Ecohealth “Online First”
3 Carter, J., Ackleh, A.S., Leonard, B.P., Wang, H. 1999. Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) population dynamics and bamboo (subfamily Bambusoideae) life history: a structured population approach to examining carrying capacity when the prey are semelparous. Ecological Modelling 123: 207-223.
4 Zhang, B., Li, M., Zhang, Z., Goosens, B., Zhu, L., Zhang, S., Hu, J., Bruford, M.W., Wei, F. 2007. Genetic Viability and Population History of the Giant Panda, Putting an End to the “Evolutionary Dead End”?. Molecular Biology and Evolution 24: 1801-1810.