Bamboo is the most important plant in a panda’s life, because that is what it eats! Giant pandas eat four or five kinds of bamboo that grow in their home range. Sometimes their food supply is low because after bamboo produces seeds, the entire plant dies. When that happens, pandas move to another area. But now, with humans taking up much of the panda’s habitat, pandas are often unable to move to another area and may starve. In some areas, humans have cleared forests to grow only one or two kinds of bamboo, but it is not the kind pandas need to survive.
Panda females use hollow tree stumps and stone caves as dens for raising their cubs. As forests are cleared for human uses, there are fewer dens available. San Diego Zoo researchers have been working with Chinese scientists to find out if putting man-made dens in the wild could help solve this problem.