The Giant Panda Bear

By: Cali
            From dinosaurs to modern day mammals, animals have been on this earth for more than a million years. We have used them too, for symbols for many things like North America’s Bald Eagle or the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Giant Panda Bear. But sadly many species of animals are dying out. One species that is dying out or endangered is the giant panda.

WWF’s symbol, the giant panda is endangered. Endangered means a certain species is dying out faster than usual and it’s hard to recover the amount. Giant pandas live in the high mountains of China. In the wild they eat bamboo and may eat small animals if they are available because the panda is to slow to hunt. In zoos, zookeepers feed their pandas special meals including, apples, cooked rice, vitamins, milk bones, vegetables, and of course bamboo. They are very friendly which leads them to have very little fear of humans. Panda bears are also very intelligent. An example of an intelligent panda is Su-Lin. Su-Lin lives in a local zoo in Brookfield, he needed to reach some food on a high shelf, so he pushed a basket under the shelf stood up on it and grabbed the food. As you can see giant pandas are innocent, lovable animals but sadly there are 1,015 giant pandas left in the world!
            China’s giant panda is becoming endangered and I think we should take a stand. There are less than 1,000 left in China but only 1,015 left in the whole world and only 700 of that amount live in the actual bamboo forests of China! This is happening partly because of slow reproduction and partly because of the destruction of the precious bamboo trees. Farmers cut down so many bamboo trees that the pandas have been forced to move away from their home or live in nature preserves. Yeah maybe they don’t do any good for us but they also don’t do anything bad either. So does that mean we can just not care about them? NO! I think any species is worth saving especially if they are nice, funny, and cute like the giant panda bear. All me and you have to do is stop and think about what we’re doing and what kind of effect it will have on a certain species.
           Stop and think if you were a panda bear and if you wanted to be forced into a new home. You wouldn’t like it, so help out! The smallest things we do can make the biggest changes, good or bad. One change we can make is to preserve bamboo trees. Scientists believe that without bamboo the panda couldn’t survive. Another small change we can do is help the panda reproduce. Like I said earlier, pandas reproduce very slowly so that is a big effect. The third thing we can do is stop putting out hunting traps (that are meant for other animals) in the giant pandas habitat. In China the leading causes of panda deaths are the destruction of the bamboo forests and hunters traps.
        Giant panda bears are very intelligent, friendly, cute and lovable. They are the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund center. Pandas main food source is bamboo but may eat small animals. The giant panda is endangered with 1,000 left in China and 1,015 left in the world. And even though they don’t do anything good or bad I still think we should save them. There are 3 things listed but many more other huge changes we can make, so stop what you’re doing and MAKE A CHANGE!