Ever since the eastern Han Dynasty 25-220 A.D. when poet Sima Xiangru documented pandas in the imperial gardens of Chang’an, these creatures have been highly prized.
An estimated 1800 giant pandas still cling to the mountain ranges of central China that straddle the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. They camp amongst the mist shrouded coniferous forests at altitudes of up to 3000 metres. Deforestation and rapid development has pushed them away from the lowlands. About 300 live in captivity and despite intensive study, there is still much to be learnt about the social habits of these elusive creatures.
A full grown adult male can be up to 1.9 meters tall, when stood on two legs and can weigh up to 160kg. Females are generally about 10-20% smaller. Despite their cute, cuddly appearance they can be extremely aggressive. Giant pandas live up to 35 years in captivity, but are unlikely to reach half that in the wild, where their diet is almost exclusively bamboo. Despite having evolved over millions of years to eat 25 varieties of bamboo their carnivorous digestive system has to process vast quantities (9-14kg a day) in order for them to stay healthy. Thus they can be foraging for up to sixteen hours a day. To make matters worse the different types of bamboo they can consume bloom at different times of year, so if a particular type is destroyed in their territory by rapid development they can quickly starve.
Maturity is reached between four and eight years old, but females only ovulate once a year in the spring when they are only able to conceive for about three days. Pink hairless new-borns take three months to crawl and up to three years to go it alone. Because of these restraints a wild female may only produce five to eight cubs in her lifetime, making it difficult for numbers to replenish quickly from illegal hunting and loss of habitat.
In the early 1970s giant pandas played an important role in the initial cultural exchanges between the PRC and the West. They were given to various zoos throughout the world as an act of diplomacy. By 1984 they could only be given on loan, typically under terms of up to one million dollars a year, with the provision that any cubs born were the property of China.
In 2006 the Sichuan panda sanctuaries were given World Heritage status, although some argue that there isn’t enough natural habitat to support them and that the money could be spent on more sensible conservation projects.