No Room to Roam Life for giant pandas may seem simple. Yet
they face many challenges. One challenge is finding enough food.
Bamboo grows easily in the mountains of central China, where wild giant pandas live. Once bamboo plants make seeds, though, the plants die. It takes a long time for the seeds to grow into new bamboo shoots that are big enough to eat. A giant panda can’t wait. So it must move to another area to find food. T at’s where the second challenge comes in. T e giant panda’s habitat is shrinking.
Once, these bears lived across southeastern China. Now more than 1 billion people live in China. T e people need food, fuel, and space to live, too. So they built towns and farms. T ey chopped down trees for fuel and lumber. As a result, giant pandas now have less space to live. Today, giant pandas live in only 20 diff erent
spots high in the mountains. T ese patches of land are not connected. T ey are cut off by roads, farms, and cities. So the giant pandas’ habitat is fragmented. T e bears can’t move from place to place to find food.
Dwindling Numbers Today, only 1,600 giant pandas live in the wild.
About 300 more live in zoos and research centers. T e panda population is so small that scientists worry the bears will go extinct. T at’s why they’re doing everything they can to help. T e Chinese government has created panda
reserves. People can’t hunt, cut down trees, or build new houses inside the reserves. T at protects the giant pandas and their food. T e giant pandas share their habitat with
about 4,000 other kinds of animals and plants. T ey include red pandas, clouded leopards, and a kind of ox. T e reserves protect them all.
22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXTREME EXPLORER
Panda Paths Scientists also want to help pandas move from
place to place. So they are building special paths between the patches of panda habitat. T ey grow bamboo along the paths. T e bamboo attracts the bears. It also gives them a safe route to travel. Scientists are hard at work in the research
centers, too. T ere, they take care of sick and injured pandas. T ey also help raise panda cubs. T is is especially important when a panda has twins. In the wild, the mother will only take care of one cub. Oſt en, the second cub dies. In the research center, scientists help her take care of both babies. Some day, these cubs may be set free. T e
wild giant panda population may grow. Even so, their future remains uncertain. So people must continue to find ways to share the forest with the giant panda. To survive, they need bamboo to eat and room to roam.
Wordwise
adaptation: a behavior or body part that helps an animal survive
extinct: no longer existing in living form
habitat: an environment where an animal lives and can fi nd what it needs to survive, such as food, water, and space
nutrient: a substance in food that a living thing needs to live and grow
omnivore: an animal that eats both plants and animals
population: the total number of animals in a group
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