Pandas could be wiped out just as conservationists think they are recovering, warns study

The 'panda survival crisis' remains serious, scientists say, despite the animals' recent reclassification as 'vulnerable' rather than 'endangered'

Giant pandas could be wiped out despite conservation efforts being hailed as a success, according to a new study.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently decided the bear was no longer officially “endangered” but was merely “vulnerable” to extinction.

This still means the animal faces as “high risk of extinction in the wild” – rather than the previous “very high” chance – but the new research suggested its true plight was perhaps being underestimated.

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Writing in the journal Ecological Modelling, scientists from Beijing Forestry University said the number of giant pandas and the total area of suitable habitat had increased over the past 10 years.

But they also said habitats had also become more fragmented with 73 per cent of local populations so small that they faced a “high survival risk”.

Some 55 per cent of groups of pandas had fewer than 10 individual members and only 33 per cent had more than 30, which is seen as the minimum number to ensure a population’s survival.

“We cannot just focus on the overall number of wild pandas and the total area of habitat, ignoring habitat fragmentation and population isolation,” the researchers wrote.

They suggested that conservation efforts could be masking a more fundamental problem.

“The giant panda survival crisis is complicated because of the co-existence of protection and interference,” they said.

“The total habitat area and the population size increased as the degree of fragmentation also increased.”

They used “catastrophe theory” to analyse the situation laid out in the two more recent surveys of panda populations, carried out between 1999 and 2003 and then again between 2011 and 2014.

“The [latest] data showed that 73 per cent per cent of the local populations had a high survival risk and 55 per cent of [local populations] included less than 10 individuals.

“Habitat fragmentation and human disturbance were the most important factors that negatively affected ecosystem stability and increased the survival risk of pandas. Thus, panda survival crisis remains serious.”

Concern is growing about the rate of extinction of species on the planet, largely as a result of human activity. This is now similar to extinction rates that took place during the five global mass extinction events over the past 500 million years, caused by a range of effects such as meteorite strikes and massive volcanic eruptions.

The astonishing demise of wildlife because of humans is one reason geologists are considering declaring a new epoch, called the Anthropocene after our species. The bones of extinct wildlife from our time will eventually help form a recognisable line in the rocks of the future.