Giant Pandas - Cute, Adorable, Endangered

Here you'll find information, facts, photos and videos about Giant Pandas. There are also informational links to organizations and sanctuaries who's mission is to save them. You can't look at these pictures and videos without smiling at these adorable bears.

For me, they almost don't look real but more like a big stuffed animal. And, they obviously don't know that they are critically endangered. Maybe ignorance is bliss. ~Sigh~

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Ursidae

Genus: Ailuropoda

Species: A. melanoleuca

Binomial name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca

(David, 1869)

Although Giant Pandas are classified as carnivore, their diets are herbivorous as they eat bamboo (about 99%) but supplement their diet with whatever else is available such as bananas, oranges, leaves from shrubs, eggs and honey.

Due to the limited nutrition derived from bamboo, they eat lots of it -- as much as 14 kilos per day. They will also eat fish and eggs and meat when available.

In captivity, Giant Pandas are fed bamboo but they also get sweet potatoes, carrots, applies and sugar cane.

Giant Pandas are found in several mountain ranges in China. Specifically, in the Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. They used to be found in the lowlands, however due to habitat destruction from farming and the clearing of forest of bamboo (their main source of food), they are now found only higher up.

Between the ages of 4 and 8 years old, Panda become sexually mature. They mate 1 time per year and usually give birth to 1 or 2 cubs. The cubs are quite helpless weighing in at only 3 to 4-1/2 ounces. They are also born blind and furless.

If 2 cubs are born in the wild, the mother will only take care of the strongest cub and leaves the 2nd cub to die. The remaining cub will stay with the mother for about 2 years. Like polar bears, the father has no part in raising the cub.

Although the cub is born hairless, fur begins to appear a month after birth along with black spots where the black fur will grow in. The cubs begins to crawl at 3 to 4 months old.

Giant Pandas live around 25 years.

During the first 3 months of life, the following occurs:

Photo: Atlanta Zoo

• Eyes open.
• Fur grows in
• Black marking have developed.
• Teeth have broken through gums.
• They are scooting around but not walking yet.

Small groups of Giant Pandas share a large territory but are solitary bears who have their own defined territory. They are good climbers and create dens in trees and rock crevices. They do not hibernate and do not create permanent dens.

These cute bears communicate with each other vocally and through scent markings.

Giant Panda are on stamps and coins

Lucky for Giant Pandas, the Chinese have NOT found any medicinal value in Panda body parts, unlike the Asiatic Bear and other animals. Although they are hunted for their fur and during famine, to eat.

In fact, the Chinese people have quite a love relationship with these cute bears. They are depicted as cute and cuddly and people swarm to the zoos to see them, especially when a new cub is born.

The Giant Panda's likeness is depicted on many stamps and coins.

China offers pandas as gifts to other countries

The Chinese used to give Giant Pandas as gifts to other countries. In 1984, however, instead of using pandas as agents of diplomacy, the China instead offered pandas to other nations on 10-year loans.

The fee of these "loans" were up to US$ 1,000,000 per year and came with a provision that any cubs born during the loan were the property of the People's Republic of China.

A WWF lawsuit in 1998 brought about a change in the U.S. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only allows a U.S. zoo to import a panda IF the zoo can ensure that China will put more than half of its loan fee into conservation efforts for wild pandas and their habitat. Way to go WWF!

For an excellent article on Panda Diplomacy, click Panda Diplomacy.

(photo of Hu Jintao during a defense meeting at the Pentagon in May, 2002)

Check out this cute video of a panda cub

Below is a video of the 1st year of life of Zhen Zhen, the little cub born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007.

Zhen Zhen is charming and keeps guests entertained with her antics and sense of curiosity. She can almost make you forget how endangered Giant Pandas are. Pandas are still with us because of the panda conservation effort that is happening world-wide.

PBS TV has put together this hour-long documentary about her first year. It also discusses the conservation effort that allowed her to be born and thrive.

To see when the documentary will playing on your tv, check online at Local PBS TV Schedule.

Now, off you go, check out Zhen Zhen in the video below.

Make A Paper Giant Panda

I shared with you the polar bear kit already, but here's one to build a paper-craft Giant Panda. It's also part of Yamaha Motor Company Rare Animals of the World Series of Paper Craft models. In bears, they only have the polar bear and the giant panda. Both are terrific.

Here's what the finished giant panda looks like:

The instructions are easy to follow: just match the names and numbered parts in the instructions. This will make a great family, summer break or school project.

Member of Save Our Bears (SOB) Headquarters is a group of lenses devoted to help change the plight all of the 8 bear species through awareness and fund raising.

The lenses show the wonderful nature of bears and many will, at the same time, shine a spotlight on the dangers bears face including: trophy hunters, gall bladder and bile farming, pollution, bear baiting, global warming, and habitat destruction.

You'll also find fun lenses on great polar bear movies, books, teddy bears, even cartoon and toy bears.

Photos of panda cubs born in May 2009

These wonderful photos of baby pandas are from the Thailand Zoo...

The story behind the Dancing Bear Rescue

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