• IUCN 2008 Red List: Endangered
• CITES: Appendix I
• Chinese Wildlife Conservation Law: Category 1

Giant pandas are solitary animals. In the wild, their black and white coats help them avoid each other during non-breeding seasons. Female giant pandas come into heat for only 2 to 5 days each year and a pregnancy can last about 140 days. When giant pandas give birth, they usually produce only one or two cubs. If there are two, normally only one cub will survivel.

Only about 1,600 giant pandas remain in their natural habitat. They can be found in six small regions in the Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces of China. As the habitat of giant pandas is highly fragmented, many have no way to move to new areas to find food or to mate with other groups. Their short mating periods has further made conservation efforts both challenging and vital.

• Tiny newborn giant pandas weigh about 100 grams. When they grow up, they weigh about 100 kilograms, or 1,000 times more than when they were born!
• Giant pandas need 4,300 to 5,500 kilocalories of food per day to survive, the equivalent of twenty bowls of rice or twenty hamburgers for humans!