Pandas are at risk because their habitats are quickly disappearing. The bamboo they need to eat is cleared to make room for new roads and buildings in China. However, there are small areas of the country called reserves that have centers devoted to caring for pandas and increasing the panda population. Through colorful photos and enlightening text, readers explore these centers and discover the hardworking people who are striving to protect pandas. Fact boxes provide fun tidbits of additional information about these popular animals.

They’re powerful, fierce carnivores...and they need our help. Tigers are in very real danger of extinction. Hundreds of years of people hunting tigers and destroying their habitats have drastically reduced their numbers. Now, several countries and wildlife groups have teamed up to save the remaining tigers prowling the forests of Asia. This volume is filled with vivid photographs and fun fact boxes, helping readers learn about the six subspecies of tigers, their behaviors, and the recent efforts to save them.

Perhaps nothing about nature calls to us as deeply as wild animals. To see an enormous whale leaping out of the water, the eerily human eyes of a gorilla, or the comical waddle of a penguin; to hear the ethereal howl of a wolf or majestic roar of a lion—these experiences change us. Around the world, animal populations are threatened by loss of habitat, pollution, climate change, overhunting, and poaching—and yet wildlife-based tourism is growing rapidly and makes up as much as forty percent of the worldwide tourism industry today. In Pandas to Penguins, nature journalist Melissa Gaskill profiles twenty-five species and one endangered ecosystem, highlighting local ecofriendly travel outfitters operating in the area for those seeking out their own enriching personal experience with wildlife. She provides basic information about each animal’s behavior and biology, descriptions of the threats they face, and maps, photographs, and first-person accounts of wildlife watching. Each species meets three basic criteria: 1) some level of risk to its survival, 2) a reasonably accessible habitat where travelers have a chance to view the animal in the wild in its natural setting, and 3) responsible tourism that directly benefits the animal or its habitat. More than a wildlife bucket list or an exhortation to “see them before they’re gone,” this guide is intended to identify wildlife experiences that can be life changing for people as well as animals. Extinction is tragic but not inevitable. We can all do something to make a difference, and Pandas to Penguins is an important resource for adventurers and armchair travelers alike.

Combines the latest findings from the field and the laboratory with panel and workshop summaries from a recent international conference.

In this magnificent, heart-wrenching book--hailed Best Book of 1993 by the New York Times Book Review and USA Today--acclaimed naturalist and National Book Award winner George B. Schaller documents the plight of the mysterious panda--and urgently calls for the compassion needed to save these gentle animals from extinction. Includes a new Preface for this edition. 27-color plates.

Red Panda: Biology and Conservation of the First Panda provides a broad-based overview of the biology of the red panda, Ailurus fulgens. A carnivore that feeds almost entirely on vegetable material and is colored chestnut red, chocolate brown and cream rather than the expected black and white. This book gathers all the information that is available on the red panda both from the field and captivity as well as from cultural aspects, and attempts to answer that most fundamental of questions, "What is a red panda?" Scientists have long focused on the red panda's controversial taxonomy. Is it in fact an Old World procyonid, a very strange bear or simply a panda? All of these hypotheses are addressed in an attempt to classify a unique species and provide an in-depth look at the scientific and conservation-based issues urgently facing the red panda today. Red Panda not only presents an overview of the current state of our knowledge about this intriguing species but it is also intended to bring the red panda out of obscurity and into the spotlight of public attention. - Wide-ranging account of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) covers all the information that is available on this species both in and ex situ - Discusses the status of the species in the wild, examines how human activities impact on their habitat, and develops projections to translate this in terms of overall panda numbers - Reports on status in the wild, looks at conservation issues and considers the future of this unique species - Includes contributions from long-standing red panda experts as well as those specializing in fields involving cutting-edge red panda research.

Learn all about giant pandas, including where they live, why they are endangered, and how people are working together to save them. Chapters explain physical characteristics and behaviors as well. Additional features include full-color photographs, informative sidebars, detailed maps, a glossary of key words and phrases, and an introduction to the author.

The acclaimed wildlife photographer presents “a powerful visual record of threatened animals and ecosystems facing the harshest of challenges” (The Guardian, UK). In Endangered, the result of an extraordinary multiyear project to document the lives of threatened species, acclaimed photographer Tim Flach explores one of the most pressing issues of our time. Traveling around the world—to settings ranging from forest to savannah to the polar seas to the great coral reefs—Flach has captured stunning images of endangered animals and their disappearing ecosystems. Among Flach’s subjects are primates coping with habitat loss, big cats in a losing battle with human settlements, elephants hunted for their ivory, and numerous bird species taken as pets. With eminent zoologist Jonathan Baillie providing insightful commentary on this ambitious project, Endangered unfolds as a series of vivid, interconnected stories that pose gripping moral dilemmas, unforgettably expressed by more than 180 of Flach’s incredible images.

"In August 2015, zookeepers at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, were thrilled to spot a tiny shadow on an ultrasound. For a species as rare as the giant panda, every new cub is cause for celebration. Zoo staff monitored mother Mei Xiang, and within days a newborn appeared, weighing in at just one third of a pound. While Mei Xiang cradled her vulnerable infant, zookeepers monitored the pair day and night through cameras in the panda den, and some two million viewers logged on to the zoo website. First Ladies Michelle Obama and Peng Liyuan hosted a ceremony to announce the cub's name: Bei Bei, meaning "precious treasure" in Mandarin Chinese. An instant celebrity, the cub captured hearts all over the world. But pandas in zoos are considered emissaries from the People's Republic of China, the only country where they live in the wild. Four years after his birth in America, Bei Bei would embark on an important new mission."--

From 1984 through 1995 a small band of ecologists led by Pan Wenshi from Peking University conducted a study of wild giant pandas in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi Province. This project was the first Chinese-led conservation project in China and was conducted during a significant transition period in Chinese history, as the country opened its society and science to the world. The project focused on behavioral observation of wild giant pandas, but evolved to include physiology, nutrition, ecology, land-use policy, and population biology as the staff became more aware that the issues with captive pandas (assisted reproduction, unusual diet, and genetic inbreeding) were not the most critical to survival of wild populations. It is evident in this work that, as the scientists gained knowledge, they came to see giant panda conservation as wrapped in landscape ecology and human/wildlife interactions. The group was seminal in the Chinese government's enactment of a logging ban to their study area by advocating for pandas at the national level. The project was summarized in a 2001 volume, but its publication in Mandarin limited its influence on the greater conservation community. This English version of the original work translates, condenses, and refines the original volume, with added contextual chapters on the importance of this volume and how our understanding of giant panda conservation is shaped by this pioneering field work.