Panda population double?
The number of wild pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in the People's Republic of China is possibly much higher than previously estimated: Instead of just 1,500 bamboo bears, 2,500 to 3,000 of the animals are said to be roaming through southern China's mountain forests.
So far, however, these figures are only based on an extrapolation derived from the population size of the pandas in the Wanglang Nature Reserve. There, biologists led by Fuwen Wei from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing collected faeces from the endangered species and checked them for DNA sequences of the bears. Based on the genetic differences found, they put the panda population in the sanctuary at around seventy animals, twice as many as in 1998. According to the research team, this increase could not have come about solely through births. Rather, the earlier surveys - through sightings or different bite marks on bamboo canes - simply underestimated the population because they were too imprecise.
The stool samples also showed that at least the pandas in Wanglang have not yet had to survive a genetic bottleneck and therefore do not have any genetic defects. Wei and his colleagues soon want to expand their investigations to other protected areas in order to actually obtain reliable figures. But they already rate the data from Wanglang as a great conservation success, which was achieved through the designation of nature reserves and the prosecution of poachers.
