Wild Panda Population Larger Than Earlier Estimates

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, June 11, 2004 (ENS) - A new survey of the giant panda population finds there are 1,590 pandas in the wild, about 40 percent more than were previously known to exist.

The finding is welcome news for conservationists, but they caution the higher number is most likely the result of improved survey techniques, rather than an increase in population of the world's most famous endangered species.

"The good news from the survey is there are hundreds more pandas than we previously knew existed in the wild and we found pandas living in areas we did not know had any," said Karen Baragona, head of the World Wildlife Fund's panda program. "But the survey reaffirmed our concerns that panda habitat is very fragmented and we have to ensure populations are reconnected with one another."

The figures come from a four year study of pandas and their habitat, done jointly by the State Forestry Administration of China and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Giant panda in a tree at the Chengdu Breeding Centre, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. (Photo by Fritz Pölking courtesy WWF)

Baragona said the survey is the most comprehensive ever undertaken of the giant panda population and provides the "most accurate snapshot of pandas in the wild that we have ever had."

The study is only the third survey of giant pandas in the wild. The first, completed by the Chinese government in the mid-1970s, indicated there were between 1,050 and 1,100 giant pandas.

A second survey carried out between 1985 and 1988 by Chinese officials and WWF found between 1,000 and 1,100 pandas living in the wild.

Unlike those two earlier surveys, this latest survey attempted to cover all panda habitat remaining in the wild.

The earlier surveys extrapolated numbers of pandas from selective counts of panda habitat.

Launched in April 2000, the $1 million survey involved more than 170 people in 54 counties in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, who covered an area of more than 23,000 square kilometers.

They tracked pandas through their droppings and used satellite data to map the species' distribution and population density.

The study excluded pandas under the age of 18 months.

The researchers also collected data on the state of natural resources in panda habitats, as well as the socioeconomic status of people living in the pandas' range.

A survey team treks through a valley in Wanglang Nature Preserve of Sichuan Province in search of panda signs. (Photo by Colby Loucks courtesy WWF)

The survey discovered pandas living in regions not thought to have the species such as in the Liuba and Ningqiang counties of Shaanxi province.

"The data from this survey comes at a time when we have the best opportunity for panda conservation we have ever had," Baragona said. "Panda habitat continues to be lost to human development, but the Chinese government has taken some very important steps to save giant pandas and their habitat just in the past few years."

Chief among these steps was a 1998 ban on logging in all of the giant panda's range, Baragona said.

A crackdown on poaching has also helped, and there are now 40 panda reserves across China, compared to 13 two decades ago.

The survey found some 61 percent of the known giant panda population in the wild lives in these protected areas, which contain 45 percent of panda habitat.

WWF says the survey identifies the Minshan mountain ranges in Sichuan province and the Qinling mountain range in Shaanxi province as essential areas for conservation work to protect the giant panda.

The first international conservation organization invited to work in China, WWF has been developing giant panda conservation projects since 1980.

Last year it partnered with the Shaanxi provincial government to initiate the creation of five new panda reserves and five forested corridors that re-link key panda habitats.

Corridors, which are zones that link protected areas, allow fragmented populations of pandas to cross from one protected area to another.

These are considered critical for panda survival because human land use has restricted many populations of pandas to fewer than 50 individuals.