The giant panda is a well known species that is being driven to extinction by habitat loss. It has become one of the most endangered mammals in the world, with only 1,600 of them left. Although they have been protected from hunting and on the Endangered Species list since 1984, pandas are still disappearing.

Their problem is complex. The giant panda eats bamboo and only bamboo. There is so little nutrition in bamboo that they have to eat for more than 14 hours a day to get the calories they need. They eat 13 to 36 kilograms of bamboo parts a day. Without a bamboo forest on which to feed, all the pandas will die.

Giant pandas are found only in southwestern China. China has one of the most populated countries in the world. There are more people here every year. To house and feed themselves, they cut down forests for farms and communities, including the shrinking bamboo forests. Sometimes, pandas are left in small islands of bamboo surrounded by houses and highways. Worse yet, sometimes bamboo will die off and the pandas will have to go in search of a new bamboo forest -- if there is one. Unless all development of the bamboo forests stop soon, there will be no more panda habitat and then no more pandas.


Answer the question with the full answer

1. What was done to protect giant pandas in 1984

2. Why is protecting the giant panda’s food is so hard to do?

3. What’s the amount of food pandas need daily?


Task 2. Answer True (T) or False (F)

1. The giant panda has become one of the most endangered mammals in China

2. The giant panda eats not only bamboo

3. Giant pandas are found only in southwestern China

4. Bamboo forests are disappearing because of population of people