The Giant Panda is the symbol of China and an animal that most people will instantly recognise. It is a large, bear like creature with distinctive black and white markings who live mainly on bamboo.

They are currently a protected species and there are studies that are dedicated to countiung the numbers of these amazing creatures in the wild.

So what are the Giant Panda population figures and how are these studied?

Firstly the numbers of Giant Pandas living in the wild since 2004 are thought to be around 1,600. This is a figure that might seem low, but it has actually increased since 1974.

The first major study into the numbers of Giant Pandas in the wild was between 1974 – 1977. Experts believed that at this time there were between 1,000 – 1,100 pandas in the wild.

In the next study which was conducted between 1985 – 1988 the number had dropped to around 1,000. As you can this figure has risen significantly and there are around 600 more Giant Pandas in the wild.

In addition to environmental reasons, one of the reasons that the giant panda is so endangered is thanks to their reproduction. Giant Pandas are notoriously slow to reproduce and many will not mate for some time.

Experts work out the numbers of pandas in the wild by sending out huge teams of volunteers who look out for panda dung. When they find some they will look through it to find bamboo that has not been digested.

From this they can identify the different pandas through their teeth marks in very much the same way that you could take fingerprints from a human.

As you can see finding out the numbers of Giant Pandas in the wild is a lot more complex than you might think, but it has shown that the numbers are on the increase.