Hope for pandas

Pan Pan, the world’s oldest male panda, died in captivity in China last week

Pan Pan sniffis a birthday cake made of ice for his 30th birthday at the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda in Dujiangyan, Sichuan Province, in 2015. AFP

The world’s oldest male giant panda died, but it has been a good year for the species

The animal world has not been immune to celebrity deaths. In 2016, we saw the killing of Harambe the gorilla after a child climbed into his enclosure, and the death of 38-year-old Jia Jia, the world’s oldest panda in captivity. Last week, the world’s oldest male panda succumbed to cancer at a conservation centre in China’s Sichuan province. Pan Pan – whose name means “hope” – was 31, the equivalent of over 100 human years. The average lifespan of a panda is 20.

Many of us had not heard of him, but without Pan Pan you might not have seen any panda in a zoo. Born in the wild, he was brought to the Sichuan facility at two months old. Despite the extremely low and slow breeding rate of pandas, Pan Pan has left behind more than 130 descendants – a quarter of all the captive-bred pandas on the planet.

Thanks in part to his efforts, giant pandas were removed from the list of endangered species this year. It’s sad that Pan Pan is no more, but 2016 has generally a good year for pandas.