They have six fingers on their front paws which helps them to grip things better. Giant pandas can grow to be almost five feet long and can weigh more than 200 pounds.

The life of the pandas depends on bamboo. Most pandas spend sixteen hours a day eating. One panda can eat twenty to thirty pounds of bamboo in one day. When they can’t get it they will eat meat. Each kind of bamboo lives for only a few years before it flowers and dies. Whole bamboo forests suddenly disappear and the pandas die of starvation. People cut down bamboo to make furniture and other stuff. They also clear the land for farming. There are only about one thousand giant pandas still living.

Laws have been passed to protect the pandas. The Chinese government has set aside large areas of land as panda reserves. These areas have some of the best bamboo forests in China. World Wildlife Fund scientists have been studying pandas and their food supply. hopefully these efforts will keep pandas from becoming extinct.