Panda Facts
• A Panda’s official name is Giant Panda - facts show they are from China.
• Pandas are an endangered species.
• While Pandas once lived in many lowlands and mountains, today there are no lowland Pandas because they have been pushed out by farming and the clearing of native forests.
• Pandas now live in broadleaf and coniferous forests which have an under-structure of bamboo. In these elevations of 5,000-10,000 feet it is always cloudy and misty.
• Pandas are bears and they are easily identified by their distinctive black and white coloring.
• Pandas have a diet of 99% bamboo.
• Pandas are comparable in size to black bears, between two and three feet high when standing on all four legs and are four to six feet long.
• Male Pandas weigh up to 250 pounds while females are under 220 pounds.
• A Panda in the wild has to eat 20-40 pounds of bamboo a day and spends up to 16 hours a day searching it out.
• Pandas reach maturity between four and eight years of age and can breed for 15-16 years. One of the reasons it is difficult to increase the population of Pandas is that they only have one breeding period a year of 24-36 hours.
• The gestation period for a Panda is three to four months.
• One of the most interesting Panda facts is that at birth a Panda cub only weighs 3-5 ounces, the smallest baby in relation to its mother’s size in the animal world.
• Other young Panda facts are that the cub is completely helpless and totally dependent on its mother. Cubs are 6-8 weeks old before they open their eyes and don’t walk until around three months of age. Cubs nurse for nine months to a year.
• While Pandas do drink from mountain streams, the bamboo they eat provides them with the majority of their water needs, bamboo being fifty-percent water.
• Giant Pandas now only live in three provinces in China.
• There are only around 1600 Pandas left in the world, with 980 in reserves, mainly in China.
• Probably one of the best known Panda facts in the United States is that then President Richard Nixon was given two Pandas, a male and a female, in 1972 as a gift of friendship from China. These two Pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing both died in the 1990s without producing any offspring who lived. The male, Hsing-Hsing lived to be 28 years old. They both lived out their lives in the Washington Zoo.
• In the wild a Panda’s home territory is one square mile.
• There is also a Red Panda, which looks more like a raccoon, growing only two feet high and weighing 6-12 pounds. This small Panda lives in China, Tibet, Nepal, Burma and India.
• As the logo of the World Wildlife Federation, the giant Panda has become a symbol of endangered species and international wildlife conservation.
• Human beings are the biggest threat to Pandas. In spite of being endangered, poaching of Pandas continues.