Meanwhile, giant panda declared out of danger

WHAT

The status of the giant panda has been upgraded from endangered to vulnerable, its population having increased substantially enough.

WHERE

Original habitat is the Chinese regions of Gansu, Hubei (regionally extinct), Hunan (regionally extinct), Shaanxi, Sichuan.

WHY

The number of adults in the wild is 1,864 at last count but the International Union for Conservation of Wildlife (IUCN) has used statistical methods to project a lower confidence interval below 1,000 mature individuals. The benchmark is below 1,000 mature adults for vulnerable, and below 250 for endangered.

HOW

Decades of conservation work in China, where the giant panda is the national icon, have involved huge investment on breeding programmes. China has cracked down on panda skin trade and gradually expanded its protected forest areas to now cover 1.4 million hectares.

WHY NOT

China’s state forestry administration said it disputed the classification change because pandas’ natural habitats have been splintered by human and natural causes. “If we downgrade their conservation status, or neglect or relax our conservation work, the populations and habitats of giant pandas could still suffer irreversible loss and our achievements would be quickly lost,” it said in a statement. 2016 1,864

Data compiled from IUCN and WWF websites; additional details from AP