We can see giant pandas everywhere, for example, on the TV shows, magazines, advertisements and so on. So, many people think that it is the time to remove the giant panda out of endangered species. However, according to the Smithsonian mammalogist Miles Roberts, if people can’t help giant panda rise their birth rate, they will be extinct in 30 years! How can we believe that these extremely cute animal will disappear in 30 years? In order to protect these adorable pandas, in this essay I will discuss some reasons about why giant panda become endangered species.
The first reason that lead to the giant pandas die out is their low birth rate. Research shows that the average longevity of wild panda is about 15 years, and the females have 5-7 years child-bearing period. Since giant panda only can have at most two babies in one birth, they only can have 3 or 4 babies in their whole life. But even worse, if they have two babies at the same time in the wild, the mother does not have enough ability to raise them together. [1] Then, always one of them can survive. What’s more, according to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, when the male and female pandas moving to sexual maturity, they are ready to have a baby, due to the female panda just have 2-3 days rutting sedson in a year, it is so hard get pregnant in such short time. [2] Then, this peculiarity made giant panda have problems to have the next generation. In addition, before China took this problem seriously, the number of giant panda in 1970s was roughly 2500[3]. Owing to the careless about giant panda, the figure decreased dramatically to about 1500[4]. So, the successful rate of wild birth is pretty low and it can lead to seriousness consequences. Secondly, food lack is another important reason. First of all, “all bamboo species have very limited dispersal ability; they reproduce mainly asexually by growing new shoots from their rhizomes that have a growth rate of less than 6 m per year (Fan, H.H., 1999) [5].” So that mean bamboo need time to growth and it growth speed is quite low. Because of giant panda need eat about 23-40 kg bamboo every day, the lower growth rate of bamboo can lead to the food lack problem. Then, the global warming would change the species of bamboo in specific area that the local panda depends upon. For example, the climate warm can make bamboo grow in northern area substitute for the southern area species, and the bamboo in northern area is just vanish [6]. Additionally, it is generally known that after bamboo bloom, they will die quickly. If bamboo disappear, giant pandas in this area will die[7]. Thirdly, natural disaster can cause giant panda’s extinction, too. According to the Fourth Officially Researching Data of Giant Panda, 74.4% pandas live in Sichuan Province. However, there were 93 times earthquake in Sichuan Province in 2014 according to the China Earthquake Administration. That means earthquakes can make serious damages for the giant panda’s habitat. Furthermore, according to the Journal of Mountain Science, “2008 Wenchuan earthquake destroy giant panda’s habitats” [8]. Thanks to this horrible earthquake, “there are 1313 landslides, 818 rock debris flows, 117 rock avalanches and 43 mud flows occurred in the study area.[9]” It made the Wolong Natural Reserve suffering grievous lost in many ways. In addition, the article “Climate change threatens giant panda protection in the 21st century” results suggested that the violent changes of environments can decay the habitats of giant pandas. For instance, “52.9–71.3% of the current habitats could be lost” [10] in next couple of decades. And because of that the giant pandas would die of starvation on the way removing. The last but not lest reason is human’s behaviors. People can change the environment into a more comfortable place for themselves. However, the changed place just suitable for human, others species would force to leave or lost their life. Like the director of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, Zhang Hemin says “We humans are used to changing the environment to suit our needs.” Due to hurting the environment for couple of centuries, many wild animal habitats have been damaged or distorted totally. Normally, giant pandas would choose to move backward, but unfortunately there is no place to move and they will find no food in this area, they will starve. After that, people try to fix their mistakes by build man-made forest for giant pandas. Yet, this is useless, because research shows that there are no evidences indicated wild giant pandas will stay in man-made forest [11]. Therefore, wild giant pandas are just choosing inartificial forest be their habitats. As the result, I disagree to move giant panda out of endangered species. It is necessary to continuing protect them and find better way to boost their members. Reference:
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