Are Red Pandas Endangered? Numbers and Main Threats

What the Endangered status means

The IUCN Red List is the world’s main system for judging extinction risk. “Endangered” is the second-highest threat level for wild species, below Critically Endangered, and means a species faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild.

The red panda qualifies mainly because of its rapid decline. The latest assessment estimates that its population has fallen by about 50% over the past three generations, roughly 18 years, and that the decline is likely to continue. The species is also listed on Appendix I of CITES, the treaty on international wildlife trade, which bans commercial trade in red pandas and their parts.

How many red pandas are left?

Nobody knows exactly. Red pandas are shy, mostly active at dawn, dusk and night, and live on steep, misty slopes, so they are very hard to count. Researchers usually estimate numbers from droppings, camera traps and the amount of suitable forest.

The IUCN assessment estimated the global population at around 10,000 or fewer, and other published estimates range much wider, from a few thousand to around 20,000. What is clear is that the animals are split into many small groups. Small, isolated groups are vulnerable, because a single fire, disease outbreak or bad bamboo year can wipe one out, and inbreeding becomes more likely.

Threat 1: habitat loss and fragmentation

The main threat is the loss of the forests red pandas need. Their habitat is a narrow belt of temperate forest with a dense bamboo understory, mostly 2,000–4,300 m (6,600–14,100 ft) up. Across this belt, forests have been cleared for farmland, timber, firewood, roads and settlements.

Even where trees remain, the forest can be damaged from within. Cattle, yaks and other livestock graze in the forest, trampling and eating bamboo, and herders cut bamboo as winter fodder. Roads and clearings break forests into pieces, and red pandas, which rarely cross open ground, become trapped in small patches. In China, large areas of red panda forest were logged in the second half of the 20th century, and the population there is thought to have fallen by about 40% over 50 years.

Threat 2: poaching and illegal trade

Red pandas are killed for their fur, especially the bushy tails, which are made into hats and used in local ceremonies or as good-luck charms. In Nepal, more than 120 red panda skins were seized by authorities between 2008 and 2018. Animals also die in snares set for other wildlife.

Live red pandas are captured for an illegal pet trade, especially near the borders of Myanmar and China, where new roads have made smuggling easier. Taking even a few animals from small, isolated groups can push them toward local extinction.

Threat 3: dogs, disease and climate change

Free-roaming dogs that accompany herders or live in villages near forests can chase and kill red pandas and may spread diseases such as canine distemper. Disturbance from people and livestock also makes red pandas use larger areas and reduces the time they spend resting and feeding.

Climate change is a growing worry. As temperatures rise, the cool forests red pandas need may shift higher up the mountains, where there is less land. Bamboo also flowers and dies across large areas every few decades, and in a fragmented landscape red pandas may not be able to move to new feeding areas.

Where red pandas are most at risk

Red pandas live in five countries, and each has its own challenges:

To learn more about these forests, see where do red pandas live?

How red pandas are being protected

Red pandas are legally protected in every country where they live, and much of their habitat lies in national parks and reserves such as Langtang and Sagarmatha in Nepal, Singalila in India and Jigme Dorji in Bhutan.

Some of the most important work happens outside parks, with local communities. In Nepal, community forest user groups and conservation organizations such as the Red Panda Network employ and train villagers as “forest guardians” who monitor red pandas, report poaching and help restore habitat. Programs help families reduce firewood use and grazing in key forests and earn income from ecotourism. Nepal adopted a national red panda conservation action plan in 2019. In Bhutan, herders have helped restore and fence rangeland so livestock stay out of red panda forest, and villages in Arunachal Pradesh, India, have set aside community conservation areas.

In China, red pandas share many mountains with the giant panda, so they benefit from logging bans, reforestation and the large network of giant panda reserves. Zoos in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia run coordinated breeding programs using an international studbook, keeping a healthy reserve population and funding work in the wild.

Can red pandas recover?

Red pandas breed fairly well when their forests are protected: females can have one to four cubs a year. That gives the species a better chance of bouncing back than slow-breeding animals such as the giant panda, which was moved from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2016 after decades of habitat protection (see are giant pandas still endangered?). For red pandas, the key is keeping enough connected forest and stopping poaching, so that small populations can grow and link up again.