1600 pandas face threats from horses

1,600 remaining pandas in nature are faced with a new threat from horses.

A recent study said that farmers in Sichuan province are buying a lot of horses to feed as a safe investment channel and release these horses to graze in the panda conservation area at the National Nature Reserve. Wolong family. The horses have chewed up the bamboo dust - the only food source of pandas.

"There is no need to be a panda expert to understand how it feels to go through the bamboo forests destroyed by horses. Those are the places where most of the rabbits are, but it seems like someone has just taken a mower. Go here and there, " said Vanessa Hull, a graduate student at the Center for Natural Sustainability Inclusion at Michigan State University (USA).

Large pandas are very picky about diet and habitat. They require remote, isolated forests and only eat bamboo.

Panda faces a new threat.(Source: livescience.com)

Deforestation has long been a threat to the habitat of pandas, and nature conservation workers have been focusing on limiting deforestation to protect the bear. But according to Hull and colleagues, the area of ​​bamboo forests in protected areas is gradually disappearing.

Researchers talked to the farmer and learned that they heard people from other places saying that horse-raising investment would be profitable. However, horses were forbidden to graze in cattle farming areas, so they had to let them go to Wolong sanctuary.

In 10 years from 1998-2008, the number of horses at Wolong increased from 25 to 350. These horses belong to about 30 different horses.

Hull and colleagues approached 4 herds of horses and wore them for the horses in the neck strap with GPS navigation equipment. They found that the horses' feeding grounds overlapped with the panda's foraging places, and both of them liked warm sunny slopes with bamboo patches.

With a horse and a panda eating the same amount of bamboo, 20 horses with the same food would quickly wipe out the forest, leaving very little food for the individual bears later.

"Cattle affect almost all biodiversity conservation points. They account for 20% of the number of mammals on Earth and therefore monopolize important resources to maintain the fragile ecosystem of Earth , " said Jack Liu, an environmental and human scientist in Michigan.

The new findings from this study have changed the situation of protecting pandas. The heads of the Wolong Natural Reserve have banned horse riding into the reserve.