~The Giant Panda~One of the world's rarest animals is the Giant Panda. Situated in China, the Panda was once found over a much wider area of the country. The Panda was thought to be a member of the Raccoon family. However, Scientists have started believing, that the Giant Panda is, in fact, a bear. The Panda is native to china and has been in existence for the past two million years and is sometimes called 'The Living Fossil'.The giant panda has a white, chubby body with black legs and a broad band of black across the shoulders. It has a large, round head; small, black ears; and a white face with black patches around each eye. This panda grows to between about 1 and 1.5 metres long and has a short tail. Adults weigh up to 160 kilograms. The female gives birth once a year to one or two cubs. Panda cubs are extremely tiny, weighing only about 140 grams at birth.Both giant pandas and red pandas can grasp obje ...view middle of the document...
This event occurred most recently in the late 1970's. It takes several years for the seeds to grow into plants that can provide food for pandas. By 1980, Chinese scientists reported that at least a quarter of the giant-panda population had starved to death.In 1972, China gave two giant pandas to the United States following U.S. President Richard M. Nixon's trip to China. These two pandas--Ling-Ling, a female; and Hsing-Hsing, a male--were kept in the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. The London Zoo also received two pandas, Chia-Chia and Ching-Ching, from China in 1974. The Chinese government has loaned pandas to various other European and U.S. zoos.Most attempts to breed giant pandas in zoos outside China have failed. Ling-Ling gave birth to cubs in 1983, 1984, and 1987. However, each of the cubs died within a few days after birth.The Panda has been endangered for many years due to habitat destruction for farming.After it turns five, the Giant Panda mates between March and May each year. It can give birth to up to three cubs but on most occasions the mother would reject two and keep one. At birth Panda cubs weigh about 100 grams, it has no fur and its eyes are closed. At about five months old the cub can move about freely. A full-grown male Panda can weigh up to 180kg, females weigh 25kg lighter.Pandas sometimes eat rats or other small animals but their main source of food is arrow bamboo. Pandas eat, on average, 3481 stems or about 20kg of Bamboo each day. At different times of the year, pandas change their diet of bamboo. In springtime they eat dry steams of bamboo, in summer & autumn they eat bamboo leaves and in winter they eat one-year-old steams.Habitat destruction is killing the Giant Pandas main source of food, bamboo. They are dieing out because of farming areas. But people are trying to help the pandas out of the threat of extinction. There is ten panda preserves set up in China, so there is a safe place for pandas to be.In conclusion, I think the Giant Panda disserves some respect and help because of the hard times its species has gone through. I also believe that experienced scientists and zoologists should look after these rare animals.
