Pandas

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Pandas

• The Endangered Mountain Star
• by
• JACOB GERKEN
• March/07

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• Characteristics of Giant Pandas
• All giant pandas have claws, black spots
  around their eyes, ears and shoulders, long
  shaggy fur, and they weigh from 165 to 350
  pounds. The pandas also have a wrist bone on the
  forefoot that functions as an opposable thumb
  that is used for holding bamboo and eating
  bamboo.

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• Map of where pandas live in central China

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Pandas habitat

• The giant pandas are found in the wild in
  Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi in central China. The
  pandas live in a few rugged mountain ranges at
  the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau where
  temperate broadleaf and coniferous forests
  contain dense stands of bamboo (Encarta). The
  pandas go down the mountain in the winter and up
  in the spring. A pandas territory occupies 1 ½
  to 2 ½ square miles.

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Red Pandas

• The red panda lives in western china and Tibetan
  Himalayas. The red panda eats bamboo, small
  rodents, birds, fish, insects and bird eggs. Red
  panda are the size of large cats . The red pandas
  live in pairs or small groups.

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Red Pandas Habitat Map

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Giant and Red Panda Comparison
Both red and giant pandas eat bamboo, they have
sharp claws and teeth, strong molars for grinding
bamboo, a 6th digit near wrist (false thumb), and
strong scent glands. Both pandas are endangered.
The red panda is nocturnal and in the Ailuridae
family and the size of a giant cat. It is
reddish-orange with white and black markings.
Red pandas live in India, Nepal, and southern
China. They live in pairs or small groups. The
giant pandas are daytime animals in the bear
family. They are the size of small bears, black
and white. They live in central China and are
solitary.

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https//www.keysecure.com/pandasinternational.org/
adopt.html
ENDANGERED
The Giant Pandas are ENDANGERED because there
are only 1,600 pandas in the world. Habitat
destruction is the annihilation of the bamboo and
loss of the habitat of the pandas. This is
because of the ever increasing population of
human kind and forest fires. The hunters kill the
pandas for their fur now it is illegal to hunt
pandas in China. Illegal hunting is called
poaching. Hunters also trap them and sell them
illegally as pets. The pandas have a low birth
rate and a high death rate in the wild.

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Save those pandas!
Chinese scientists and the WWF (World Wildlife
Foundation) are creating bamboo passageways so
that giant pandas can get from one reserve to
another without the danger of crossing farms or
cities. A reserve is a sanctuary for pandas
where they can be safe without being poached.
China has 14 new reserves with 17 passageways.
They are planting bamboo all around China in
hopes that the population will return. The WWF
and other organizations are encouraging people to
Adopt a Panda for 500 per year (10 of a
panda). There are only three zoos in North
American that have pandas in captivity The
Mexico City Zoo, San Diego Zoo, and the National
Zoo in Washington D.C. They are breeding baby
pandas so they can prevent them from becoming
extinct. In order for pandas to breed
successfully, they need to have a really large
habitat with bamboo, trees, outdoor enclosure,
logs, and other natural environment features.

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Conservation Efforts
www.panda.org www.Nationalzoo.si.edu/forms/gpdonat
ion www.redpandaproject.org www.Worldwildlife.o
rg/DHTML/conserva3.html

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THE END