The Last Panda

About this book

With a New Afterword. In 1980, George Schaller was invited by the World Wildlife Fund and the Chinese Government to Sichuan Province, to study the giant panda, a mammal so rare that there are only an estimated 1000 individuals left. For four and a half years, he and his wife studied the pandas. This book is the story of these studies, and gives much insight into the behaviour and ecology of this fascinating species. It is also a frank and disturbing account of what has gone wrong in the attempt to protect the pandas, how bureaucratic bungling, and economic and political pressures, have misdirected conservation efforts. Schaller concludes that the panda can, and must, survive.
 

Contents

Preface
Prologue

1: “Every Journey Begins with the First Step”
2: Winter Days
3: Panda Politics
4: A Footnote to History
5: A Mountain of Treasure
6: In the Hollow of a Fir
7: Wei-Wei’s World
8: Death in the Choushuigou
9: Travels in Panda Country
10: Zhen-Zhen Eats Bitterness
11: Tangjiahe
12: Crisis
13: Prisoners of Fate
14: Rent-a-Panda Epilogue

App. A In Search of the Kylin: The Endangered Wildlife of China
App. B The Panda Is a Panda
App. C Winter Birds Observed at Wuyipeng
App. D Excerpts from the 1989 Panda Management Plan
App. E Excerpts from Position Statements on Exhibition Loans of Giant Pandas

Selected Reading
Index of Names
Index of Species and Subjects