Giant pandas face starvation threat

Blossoming bamboo is threatening China’s giant pandas with starvation.

The type of bamboo they feed on becomes inedible as it blooms – an event that occurs only once every 60 years.

Some 19 giant wild pandas living in the Piankou Nature Reserve already have had their food supply reduced by 20% since arrow bamboo began flowering, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

The bamboo typically blossoms every 60 years, taking about a decade to complete the process, the report said. It did not say when the latest cycle began.

“The consequence of the arrow bamboo blossoming is very serious,” said Li Zuobin, a wildlife specialist.

It would probably force the pandas to adapt to other kinds of bamboo, said Zhang Heping, director of the Wolong Nature Reserve, another panda habitat in China’s south-western Sichuan province.

“In the process, the strong giant pandas will live on; the weak ones will die,” he said.

There have so far been no illnesses among the Piankou panda population due to the food shortage in the 1,448-square mile reserve.

Officials plan to move the animals to new habitats if bamboo supplies get dangerously low, Xinhua said.

China says it had more than 1,750 giant pandas in the wild at the end of 2003, including 161 raised in captivity.