Foreword

Summary

Conserving biodiversity is a daunting and complex task. Perhaps no species presents a greater challenge than the giant panda – one of the most recognized and threatened animals on the planet. Its difficult-to-traverse, mountainous habitat in China makes quantifying population numbers in the wild exceedingly difficult. Despite a recent survey suggesting that the wild population may be growing, there is no disagreement that the primary threat is severely fragmented habitat. There now are more than 40 isolated populations, many too small or containing too few giant pandas to be demographically and genetically viable for much longer.

Seminal studies have been conducted on wild giant panda ecology by pioneers such as Wenshi Pan, Zhi Lu and George Schaller. However, we still have only touched on the full complement of information necessary for integrated and robust conservation initiatives. One threat to overall giant panda conservation is simply the lack of broad-based knowledge about its biology. This is particularly important for such an evolutionarily distinct species. Its biological systems are unconventional: distinctive from bears, but a derivative of the ursine lineage; a bear-like, monogastric animal that largely survives on grass (bamboo); and a species that has somehow survived to modern times despite an extraordinarily short (three-day) window of sexual receptivity for the female. Surely, a more detailed understanding of such phenomena is critical, both from a scholarly perspective as well as to provide data that can inform wise management decisions.