Giant pandas: an endangered species Currently, giant pandas are highly endangered, with only 1,600 individuals living freely in the wild and around 300 living in zoos or breeding centers. This low number of extant pandas means that the species is at relatively high risk of extinction. Pandas primarily reside in China, around the Yangtze River Basin area, which poses a major problem, as this area is currently one of the most prosperous regions in China, with constant destruction and new developments. As a result, bears are pushed into small areas without the living conditions they are accustomed to. Pandas are continually fighting for their lives due to habitat loss, low reproduction rates, lack of food and poaching. Over the past forty years, pandas' natural habitats have declined by more than fifty percent. Their habitats are being destroyed so quickly that they have little time to adapt and find what they need to survive. Logging, infrastructure and oil development are just some of the many excuses used to try to validate this desolation. Panda habitats are fragmented as w...