At a reserve in southwestern China, a small group of wild pandas may be pushed closer to extinction in the wild. Researchers now report that last year’s earthquake destroyed almost a quarter of their fragile habitat.
In a recent article published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, researchers say that landslides and mudflows occurring from the May 12 earthquake have severely fragmented one of the last habitats of wild pandas. The resulting isolation from other populations puts them at risk of inbreeding, which could lead to extinction.
Lead author of the study, Weihua Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, says that the Sichuan region comprises more than half of the habitat for the world’s remaining wild pandas.
Xu estimates that more than 60 percent of the panda population – which could be as low as 35 individuals – was affected by the earthquake.
Conservation plans for pandas
To overcome the problem of isolation faced by the pandas, Xu’s team suggests the pandas would interact if they could move between habitats “using specially protected corridors.” They also recommended that panda habitat be considered in post-earthquake reconstruction and relocation of towns.
The compounding of natural disasters with human disturbances has created what Xu describes as “unprecedented challenges for biodiversity conservation.”
Just last week, China made history with the world’s first panda born using frozen sperm.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/ / CC BY 2.0
About Rhishja Cota-Larson
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