Giant Pandas and Mass Extinction, No Way!
After all the years of studying the giant panda and trying to understand their needs along with finding ways to improve their breeding, now comes the bad news about climate change and its adverse affect on bamboo the main staple of the pandas.
With China growing so drastically in the industrial sector and now more and more citizens are purchasing cars, this will be a major hurdle to overcome. Up to this point a group of scientist have been working closely with the pandas, at the urging of the government, to do everything they can to help save pandas from extinction.
Research bases and reserves were set up in the mountains where the giant panda lives, to protect their now limited habitat from further human destruction. Having just returned from China and talking with the scientist at one of the bases, it was comforting to know the great progress they have made in so many areas that have negatively affected the lives of these great bears. But now comes the ultimate test.
There is an article out, that discusses the impact of climate change and how the warming temperatures will destroy the existing bamboo creating a mass extinction of the panda unless the problems of climate change are taken seriously. Of course there is mention of developing a bamboo that will grow in warmer climates, but will the nutrient value be adequate?
This is not acceptable, governments looking for an easy way out in the solution to climate change. We have to stop or greatly reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses once and for all! We have allowed this problem to exist for too long now and to think that someone could suggest that having the giant panda go through a mass extinction is what will wake the world up to the climate change problem is ludicris!
The regions where the giant panda lives, is a magnificent site to see and yet is sad to see how small and extreme an area that these bears now live in. It appears to me over the course of their lives they have been running from man's dominance all their lives. Where they once inhabited large areas in China and other regions, they are now limited to a very segmented area that is at a very high elevation. (Click on graphics above to see full size)
The above graphic shows the mountain ranges in China, the pandas are currently living for the most part in the (Qinling and Hengduan Mountains). Very rugged, rocky and cold. So, for some who are saying the pandas need to move to a colder habitat or a higher elevation, I say you don't know what you are talking about.
Thanks to Jack Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University, who bravely is speaking out about this problem. Whereas, many scientists, government officials and the ever consuming public are turning a blind eye to climate change, Mr. Liu is not, and I commend him for it. Here are several links to Jack Liu's paper. Read it and take action, now.
Pandas bamboo may be lost to climate change,
Red panda playing ball 小熊猫的球球
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