Scientists have debated for more than a century whether giant pandas belong to the bear family, the raccoon family, or a separate family of their own.
This is because the giant panda and its cousin, the lesser or red panda, share many characteristics with both bears and raccoons.
Recent DNA analysis indicates that giant pandas are more closely related to bears and red pandas are more closely related to raccoons.

• The Giant Panda is found exclusively in China where it inhabits mountain forests that are dense with bamboo and conifers. They thrive in altitudes of 5,000 to 10,000 feet in cold, damp forest. Which makes them accustomed to torrential rains and dense mist throughout the year. Their habitat exists in only 6 small areas of inland China.
• There are thought to be less than 1,000 individuals in the wild.
• There are about 110 pandas in captivity, mainly  in China. (see my other pages for more about captive Giant Panda)
• Their numbers are deceasing due to dwindling habitat and their poor reproductive capabilities, both in the wild and in captivity.
• The average Giant Panda consumes between 20 and 40 lbs of food per day. They can spend up to 16 hours eating.
• These black-and-white bears eat primarily bamboo although they also have been known to eat other plants, fish, pika and other small rodents.
• Pandas are sexually mature at about 6 years of age
• Normally, a single cub is raised each year. The giant panda gestation period is 3- to 5-months. Cubs are often weaned at about nine months but may remain with their mother for up to 18 months.
• The panda is very agile.
• Pandas are pigeon toed!
• They have a "pseudo thumb" which aids in holding and eating Bamboo.
• They also have very powerful jaws and teeth to crush bamboo.
• Giant pandas have poor vision but a good sense of smell
• A full grown panda can weigh up to 300 pounds. Measuring between 5 and 6 foot long.
• Male pandas usually weigh 10 to 20 percent more than female pandas.
• Giant pandas do not hibernate
• Giant pandas are also susceptible to poaching as their dense fur carries is very desirable in the Far East. The Chinese government has imposed life sentences for those convicted of poaching giant pandas
• Giant pandas are generally silent animals, but do have 11 different calls, four of which occur only in the mating season: bleats, honks, moans, barks, huffs, snorts, chomps, chirps, squeals, growls, & roars.

• Reduction of human activities in the panda habitat
• Removal of human settlements
• Modification of forestry operations
• Control of poaching
• Rehabilitation of habitat
• Management of bamboo habitat
• Extension of the panda Reserve system
• Achieving out breeding between panda populations
• Maintaining a captive population
• Release of captive born pandas into the wild

The loan of Giant Pandas to foreign countries has been one way the Chinese government has been able to raise money to research and try to save these magnificent animals.

Organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have expressed concerns over short-term loans because of the stress placed on the animals. The WWF feels that this also makes the giant panda a commodity that will decrease the wild population in order to sustain a captive population for loans. Short-term loans have little or no integrated breeding program, which would help sustain the current captive population.

Changing circumstances include improvement in captive breeding success and greater knowledge of panda behavior and ecology which has meant that long-term breeding loans can be implemented within the guidelines of the NCPGP. These loans contain clauses stating the pandas and any offspring remain property of the Chinese government.

The Tibetan myth on how the giant panda got it's markings begins when four young shepherdesses that are killed while trying to rescue a panda from a leopard. When the other pandas heard of what has happened, they decide to hold a funeral to honor the girls' sacrifice.

At this time giant pandas were pure white. To honor the deceased girls, the white pandas arrived at the funeral wearing black arm bands. The pandas were so sad, and so moved by the ceremony, that they began to cry. As their tears rolled down their faces, the dye from the black armbands began to run and mingle with their tears. As they rubbed their eyes, the black dye made big spots. In their grief, they clutched at their ears and began hugging one another closely. The black dye marked the areas where the pandas touched themselves and each other. The pandas vowed never to wash off the black dye as a remembrance of the girls and the sacrifice they made. They also wanted their panda cubs, and the panda cubs yet to come, to remember what happened. So the pandas turned the four shepherdesses, into a mountain with four peaks.

This mountain stands in the Sichuan province near the Wolong Natural Reserve in China.

• The Chinese name "da xiong mao" means "great bear cat".
• Fossil records of the Giant Panda go back about 600,000 years.
• Records show the habitat of the panda extended across southern Asia.
• In 1869, a French missionary and naturalist named Pere Armand David was the first European to describe the Giant Panda.
• In 1936, clothing designer Ruth Harkness brought the first live Giant Panda, named Su-Lin, to the United States. Su-Lin lived at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo  until he died in 1938. 
• In 1980, the first Giant Panda birth outside China occurred at the Chapultepec Zoo.

• Schaller, George B, Hu Jinchu, Pan Wenshi and Zhu Jing, The Giant Pandas of Wolong, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984.
• Schaller, George B,  The Last Panda, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.
• Schmidt, Jeremy. The Long Road Back: A Canadian Biologist struggles to save the last pandas. Equinox, No. 39, May/June 1988.
• Sheldon, William G, The Wilderness Home of the Giant Panda, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1975.