We couldn’t have a site extolling the virtues of bamboo without sharing information about its most famous admirer, the giant panda. The giant panda is a bear, and like its more ferocious cousins, pandas can eat meat. However, scientists estimate that the diet of giant pandas consists almost totally (99%) of bamboo.
Bamboo is such an important panda staple, the animals developed a primitive thumb from a wrist bone, so they can hold the bamboo more easily. Despite this adaptation, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore and does not have the ability to digest cellulose efficiently. Since it derives little energy from consumption of bamboo, the average giant panda must consume as much as 9 to 14 kg (20 to 30 pounds) of bamboo shoots a day.
As promoters of bamboo for human use, readers might think our bamboo sheets or bamboo clothing are stealing food from the pandas’ paws. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bamboo utilized for fabric production comes from Moso Bamboo, located in eastern parts of China. Twenty-five species of bamboo are eaten by pandas in the wild, such as Fargesia dracocephala and Fargesia rufa and it is important that they have at least two different species in their range to avoid starvation.
The Giant Pandas live in the bamboo forests of southwest China. Due to farming, forest clearing, and other development, the giant panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. Estimates of the wild giant panda population ranges from 1600 up to 3000. Though reports show that the number of wild pandas are on the rise, the International Union for Conservation of Nature believes there is not enough certainty to remove the Giant Panda from the endangered animal list.
Most Westerners with TV’s have seen the efforts of major zoos to breed pandas from captive animals. Because of the rarity of successful breeding, births are greeted with more fanfare than other zoo animals and even most humans.
More important than these efforts among zoos is the willingness of governments like China to curtail the exploitation of lands that contain numbers of giant pandas. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, up from 13 reserves twenty years ago.
Bamboo plays such an important role for our environment, people and animals alike. It’s powerful growth, sustainability and amazing qualities have provided nutrients, medicine, shelter and a renewable source for man made products for centuries.
The bamboo species needed by pandas for nutrients plays an equally important role. Take a look at what Jack Black has to say and see how you can help the pandas!
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