Panda habitat destroyed by China quake

by Rob Peters | June 17, 2008 at 12:34 pm | 500 views | 7 comments

When the quake first hit, some of the only good news to come out of China were a handful of stories about saved pandas, but now officials have some dire news to add. Many of the bears may be safe, but much of their habitat was destroyed.

BEIJING (AFP) - Over 80 percent of the giant panda's habitat in China was damaged or destroyed by the earthquake that hit southwest Sichuan province, an official at the State Forestry Administration said Tuesday.

"In the earthquake, 83 percent of the giant panda's habitat was damaged or destroyed," Cao Qingyao, a spokesman for the administration, told reporters.

The fate of the pandas has been a cause of concern following the devastating May 12 quake, which cut off access to large swathes of mountainous areas, including China's largest panda breeding centre in Wolong, Sichuan.

A giant panda from the Wolong reserve has already been found dead after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake.

The 1,400 wild pandas in the quake-hit regions represent about 88 percent of the country's total of the endangered animals. Sichuan is their main home, with others living in nearby provinces.

"Due to current communication problems, it is still impossible to go deep into the mountains, so we are unable to assess the number of animal losses," Cao said.

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MyAngel 27

at 13:08 on June 17th, 2008

Badly needed medical supplies, tents for the keepers who are taking care of the pandas and formula for the year old panda cubs at Wolong Conservation Preserve have been supplied by Pandas International....please help that organization if you possibly can. Look them up on the internet...PandasInternational.com The need for food and shelter and nutritional requirements for the Giant Pandas in the quake devastated Province is dire! Thank you for running this story on the plight of the Giant Pandas.

bellycub

at 13:23 on June 17th, 2008

This beautiful panda is one of just a handful that is living in a select few zoos in the USA. I discovered her at the Memphis Zoo in Memphis Tennessee. The exhibit starts with a wonderful documentary short on the plight of the pandas in China and how their natural habitat has been disappearing. It also showed us what is being done to better the habitat so that the pandas can thrive and reproduce successfully. Several attempts have been made for this panda to reproduce in captivity but all have been unsuccessful.

bellycub has contributed a photo to this story.

julianw

at 13:33 on June 17th, 2008

good stuff:

Panda news always seems so much sadder than other animal news. Is that because bad things happen always happen to Pandas or because people are so intrigued by them?

missmandymay

at 13:44 on June 17th, 2008

Visiting the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park helps support our studies of wild giant panda populations. Our Applied Animal Ecology Division established its first conservation science program for wild pandas at the Foping Nature Reserve in China in 2006. Over the next three years, the program will be utilizing radiotelemetry to research several important areas to futher our understanding of natural giant panda behavior and ecology. These include: mating strategies and genetic diversity of panda populations, denning ecology, and human disturbance.

missmandymay has contributed a photo to this story.