What are the wildlife conservation efforts made in south asia and success met ?

Question

What are the wildlife conservation efforts made in south asia and success met ?

Answer 1

Giant Panda



Panda at National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

Conservation status



Critically Endangered (IUCN 3.1)

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Ursidae

Genus: Ailuropoda

Species: A. melanoleuca

Binomial name

Ailuropoda melanoleuca

(David, 1869)



Giant Panda range

Subspecies

• A. melanoleuca melanoleuca

• A. melanoleuca qinlingensis























Close up of a baby 7-month old panda cub in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan, China.

Though the Wolong National Nature Reserve was set up by the PRC government in 1958 to save the declining panda population, few advances in the conservation of pandas were made, due to inexperience and insufficient knowledge of ecology. Many believed that the best way to save the pandas was to cage them. As a result, pandas were caged at any sign of decline, and suffered from terrible conditions. Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited. In the 1990s, however, several laws (including gun controls and the removal of resident humans from the reserves) helped the chances of survival for pandas. With these renewed efforts and improved conservation methods, wild pandas have started to increase in numbers in some areas, even though they still are classified as a rare species.

In 2006, scientists reported that the number of pandas living in the wild may have been underestimated at about 1,000. Previous population surveys had used conventional methods to estimate the size of the wild panda population, but using a new method that analyzes DNA from panda droppings, scientists believe that the wild panda population may be as large as 3,000. Although the species is still endangered, it is thought that the conservation efforts are working. As of 2006, there were 40 panda reserves in China, compared to just 13 reserves two decades ago.[4]

The giant panda is among the world's most adored and protected rare animals, and is one of the few in the world whose natural inhabitant status was able to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, located in the southwest Sichuan province and covering 7 natural reserves, were inscribed onto the World Heritage List in 2006.[16][17]

Reproduction



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Panda Research- and Breeding Centre in Chengdu

Due to the elusive nature of pandas, the expense of breeding programs, and their reputation as poor breeders only recently have researchers begun to have success with captive breeding programs. However the popular notion that pandas are naturally poor breeders has recently been proven incorrect, and studies show that the average female wild panda will have a cub roughly every other year for 15 years, adding 5 or 6 new cubs to the population over her lifetime.[6] Despite the prolific reproduction of wild pandas, once in captivity pandas lose almost all of their interest in mating. This has led some scientists to try methods such as showing pandas videos of mating pandas,[18] giving male pandas Viagra,[19],and using artificial insemination.[20] In recent years due to strict new regulations by the Fish and Wildlife Service, and increased cooperation between Chinese and American researchers, scientists have been able to dramatically increase the success rate of panda captive breeding programs.[6]

Pandas reach sexual maturity between the ages of 4 and 8, and may be reproductive until age 20.[21] The mating season takes place between March and May, when a female goes into her estrous period which lasts for 2 or 3 days and only occurs once a year.[22] During this time, two to five males can compete for one female; the male with the highest rank gets the female. When mating, the female is in a crouching, head-down position as the male mounts from behind. Copulation time is short, ranging from thirty seconds to five minutes, but the male may mount repeatedly to ensure successful fertilization. The whole gestation period ranges from 95 to 160 days.[22] Baby pandas weigh only 90 to 130 grams (3.2 to 4.6 ounces), which is about 1/900 of the mother’s weight. Usually, the female panda gives birth to one or two panda cubs. Since baby pandas are born very small and helpless, they need the mother’s undivided attention, so she is able to care for only one of her cubs. She usually abandons one of her cubs, and it dies soon after birth. At this time, scientists do not know how the female chooses which cub to raise, and this is a topic of ongoing research. The father has no part in helping raise the cub.

When the cub is first born, it is pink, furless, and blind. It nurses from its mother's breast 6 to 14 times a day for up to 30 minutes at a time. For three to four hours, the mother may leave the den to feed, which leaves the panda cub defenseless. One to two weeks after birth, the cub's skin turns gray where its hair will eventually become black. A slight pink color may appear on the panda's fur, as a result of a chemical reaction between the fur and its mother's saliva. A month after birth, the color pattern of the cub’s fur is fully developed. A cub's fur is very soft and coarsens with age. The cub begins to crawl at 75 to 90 days; mothers play with their cubs by rolling and wrestling with them. The cubs are able to eat small quantities of bamboo after six months, though mother's milk remains the primary food source for most of the first year. Giant panda cubs weigh 45 kg (99.2 pounds) at one year, and live with their mothers until they are 18 months to two years old. The interval between births in the wild is generally two years.

Name

The name "panda" originates with a Himalayan language, possibly Nepali. As used in the West the name was originally applied to the red panda. Until its relation to the red panda was discovered in 1901, the giant panda was known as Mottled Bear (Ailuropus melanoleucus) or Particolored Bear.

The Chinese language name for the giant panda, 大熊貓, literally translates to "large bear cat," or just "bear cat" (熊貓). There are two explanations for the origin of this name.

Physiologically, the eyes of most other bear species have round pupils, but the giant pandas have pupils that are vertical slits like cats' eyes. These unusual eyes, combined with its ability to effortlessly scale trees, maybe what inspired the Chinese to call the panda the "bear cat." However, this explanation seem unlikely as locals from different provinces use names such as "spotted bear" (花熊) and "bamboo bear" (竹熊) for giant panda, which shows that the farmers are more likely to use "bear" as the noun when they see an obviously bear-sized animal.

On the other hand, some researchers believe that the name "bear cat," originally belonged to the red panda, which also live on bamboo in China, and they are actually cat-size. When Himalayan first saw giant panda, they named it "large bear cat," due to the similaries in behaviors and habitat. This will also explain why Chinese zoological texts and dictionaries published in the early 20th centuries, before the series of civil wars, always used the word "large" in the name and never just "bear cat."

In Taiwan, the modern name for panda is "cat bear," (貓熊), where cat is grammatically the adjective and bear is the noun. Although many researchers have found this name to be likely derived by misunderstandings with writing formats,[23] "cat bear" logically makes more sense and thus there are no effort to change the name to the original name of "large bear cat." Some even propose that "cat bear" should be the official Chinese name internationally.[24]

Pandas in zoos

A 2006 New York Times article [2] outlined the economics of keeping pandas, which costs five times more than that of the next most expensive animal, an elephant. American zoos must pay the Chinese government $1 million a year in fees, as part of a typically ten-year contract. San Diego's contract with China is the first to expire, in 2008. The last contract, in Memphis, ends in 2013.





One of three Giant Pandas at the Atlanta Zoo.

North America

As of 2007, five major North American zoos have giant pandas:

• San Diego Zoo, San Diego, California - home of Bai Yun (F), Gao Gao (M), Su Lin (F), and a female cub, Zhen Zhen, born August, 2007.

• US National Zoo, Washington, D.C. - home of Mei Xiang (F), Tian Tian (M), and a male cub named Tai Shan

• Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia - home of Lun Lun (F), Yang Yang (M), and a female cub named Mei Lan (F)

• Memphis Zoo, Memphis, Tennessee - home of Ya Ya (F) and Le Le (M)

• Chapultepec Zoo, Mexico City - home of Shuan Shuan, Xin Xin, and Xi Hua, all females





Tai Shan in June 2007

Notable North American-born pandas

• Hua Mei, born 1999 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2004.

• Mei Sheng, born 2003 in the San Diego Zoo, returned to China 2007.

• Tai Shan, born July 9, 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington.[25]

• Su Lin, born August 2, 2005 at the San Diego Zoo.

• Mei Lan, born September 6, 2006 at Zoo Atlanta.

• Zhen Zhen, born August 3, 2007 at the San Diego Zoo.[26]





Giant panda in Vienna’s zoo Tiergarten Schönbrunn

Europe

Three zoos in Europe show giant pandas:

• Zoologischer Garten Berlin, Berlin, Germany — home of Bao Bao, age 27, the oldest male panda living in captivity; he has been in Berlin for 25 years and has never reproduced.

• Tiergarten Schönbrunn, Vien

Answer 2

Some of the projects and wildlife conservation programmes in India include Project Tiger, which has been till now the most successful one in protecting and preserving the tiger population. There is the Gir National Park, which is only habitat existing for Asiatic lions in India. The Kaziranga Sanctuary is Assam is another remarkable example of saving the endangered Rhinoceros. There's Periyar in Kerala conserving the Wild Elephants and the Dachigam National Park doing the same to save the Hangul or Kashmiri Stag.