Nota+de+prensa+en+inglés

=**The imminent extinction of the giant panda, now what?**=

Recent research has confirmed the current population decline of giant pandas (//Ailuropoda melanoleuca//). It has been predicted that demographic, genetic and environmental factors will lead to extinction of this animal specie (in danger according to UICN) in the Xiaoxiangling, if populations remain isolated. As solution, it has been proposed the specimens movement to different populations. “In April 2009 the first female giant panda was translocated into Lizhiping Reserve by the Chinese government”.

The main causes of this decline have been holding their territory because man’s action, the human population growth and climate change and lesser degree poaching and capturing specimens for zoos that was for a short period of time. It has been found that "until the 1950s, the proportion of the human population working in agriculture exceeded 90% in the Xiaoxiangling area" which has led, according to Zhu et al, that "these populations experienced a strong, recent demographic reduction (60 fold) in the last 250 years". In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the human population subsisted mainly on agriculture and the methods used for providing arable land were cutting and burning forest in mountain areas. As the population grew, the forests were converted to agricultural land and giant panda habitats are lost and fragmented. The giant panda habitat has declined about 30% between 1975 and 1994, and land use by humans has doubled.

During the last centuries, has been affected not only the giant panda but also other species like the red panda, the Sichuan snub-nosed monkey, the takin and the Crested Ibis. Thus, the development of a conservation plan for the panda, it could also raise the profile of conservation of these species.

These conclusions could be obtained from the results obtained by the Beaumont’s method, where recent population showed a decline in the population of panda. This can also have been influenced by the bottleneck model so that there is reduced genetic variability and a significant change in the proportion of alleles.

Press note based in “Zhu, L., Zhan, X., Wu, H., Zhang, S., Meng, T., Bruford, M. W., We, F. (2010). Conservation Implications of Drastic Reductions in the Smallest and Most Isolated Populations of Giant Pandas. //Conservation Biology//, 24, 1299-1306”.

For additional information, address correspondence to F. Wei, email weifw@ioz.ac.cn.