NEWSFOCUS

party, you see an increase in regulation.

I probably cant say that we wont have
an increase in regulatory activity. But they
wont be slipshod, dashed out at the last
minute. They will have gone through careful
review to make sure that they really make
people better off and not worse off; that they
serve a broader public interest and not a
narrow interest.

Comparing the Reagan and Bush years

I think that the focus now is more on regulatory reform, or smarter regulation. Back then,
the phrase was regulatory relief. Now you
wont see that phrase. Youll see people talking
about smarter regulation.
On OIRAs proposed risk-assessment
guidelines
What [the recent National Academies report]
said was, We agree with your goal. We dont
think you got it quite right. There were very
constructive suggestions in the report. I think
there is something we can do to meet everyones goal. I think there is a path forward, to
rationalize the risk-assessment process and
coordinate across agencies.
DAN CHARLES
Dan Charles is a freelance science writer based in
Washington, D.C.

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On other regulatory agencies

OIRA is a bit of a watchdog. I dont think its
antiagency. A lot of what we do is interagency
coordinating, making things more transparent, and thats not always welcome. I was here
for 5 years. My experience is, its actually quite
collaborative. My own style is collaborative. It
certainly does not need to be antiagency.

Reaching new heights. Wolong Nature Reserve

bred a record number of pandas last year.
WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Giant Panda Numbers Are

Surgingor Are They?
Experts are sparring over a controversial count of wild pandas and plans to expand
captive breeding of Chinas revered symbol
WANGLANG NATURE RESERVE, CHINAThe

excited cry of a park ranger pierces the stillness

of a bamboo forest high in the Min Mountains.
Zhan Xiangjiang, an ecologist with the Institute of Zoology in Beijing, bounds through
waist-deep snowdrifts to investigate. Catching
up with the ranger, he kneels down and points
at a small, round object that, at first glance,
looks like a greenish yam. Smell this! he
exclaims. The not-unpleasant odor of fresh
bamboo wafts up. Along with other clues
chewed bamboo stalks, paw prints, and urinemarked treesthe fresh scat is the latest evidence that Zhans monitoring team is hot on the
heels of a giant panda.
Their quarry may be elusive, but Zhan is
upbeat. Pandas are making a comeback
here, he declares. In the mid-1980s, poaching and a mass bamboo die-off sent Chinas
flagship animal into a tailspin: The countrys wild panda population plummeted to
about 1200, landing the species on the
endangered list. Experts decried its imminent extinction. But with a logging ban in all
panda habitats since 1999, the species
appears to be on the rebound.
It is a hotly debated question, however,
whether panda populations are just beginning
to regain lost ground or are already healthier
than they have been for many years. Using
DNA from hundreds of scat samples collected
in Wanglang, Zhan and colleagues published a
paper last year in Current Biology (20 June

18 MAY 2007

VOL 316

SCIENCE

Published by AAAS

2006) claiming that China may have 3000 wild

giant pandasa doubling in less than a decade
since the previous survey. The rosy analysis
has been vigorously contested. It frankly
seems preposterous that panda numbers
have grown that rapidly, says David Garshelis,
Bear Specialist Group co-chair for the World
Conservation Union (IUCN). Wanglang scientists defend their robust figure. The situation [for pandas] has really improved, says
Wanglang reserve vice-director Jiang Shiwei.
Weve seen a population increase, with newborns every year.
Virtually nothing about the iconic mammal is without rancor. Another controversy
swirls around Chinas program to breed giant
pandas in captivity. Last year, the effort produced more than 30 cubsa recordas well
as the first captive released into the wild.
Some conservationists say the breeding program can bolster wild populations. Others
are skeptical. The key is to protect the habitat, not reintroduce more pandas, says Lu
Zhi, director of the nonprofit Conservation
Internationals China off ice. They can
breed themselves, and its a reasonable
population already, so why add another
flower to the garden?
Arguable estimates
Zhan cups some scat in his bare hand and grins
as it shimmers in the sunlight. The shiny layer
is mucus, he saysand its full of DNA. To

www.sciencemag.org

CREDIT: CHARLOTTE JENNINGS

On regulatory burdens
I would say that there are better ways to do
regulations. We can regulate smarter, get the
benefits that we all desire, with fewer costs.
I did my masters thesis on economic
incentives for pollution control. Back then, it
was a novel idea. In the 1970s and early 80s,
command and control [legal limits on pollution, enforced by fines or criminal penalties,
as opposed to economic measures such as
taxes or tradable pollution permits] was the
standard approach to addressing environmental problems. Now, its How can we harness
market incentives? People realize that if you
provide incentives, you can reach the outcome
you intended. Command and control doesnt
always reach that outcome. If you force people
to do something, but they dont really want to,
theyll find ways to meet the letter of the law,
but you might have some unintended effects.

SOURCE: COLBY LOUCKS/WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

NEWSFOCUS
lation is slowly growing, he says. But
until theres better evidence, theres certainly no reason to remove pandas from the
endangered list.

argues that Wolongs ambitions may divert

funds from conservation programs aiming to
protect wild populations. Maintaining a
captive population is not cheap, so they seriously need to ask themselves why they need
Growing pains
300 pandas, she says.
On a single-lane dirt road wending between
Zhang defends the target. Wolongs goal, he
misty crags deep in Sichuan Province, traffic says, is to introduce 10 to 20 captive pandas a
has slowed to a crawl. Hundreds of dump year to shore up smaller wild populations. In
trucks and steamrollers are expanding the only April 2006, Wolong staff for the first time
road to Wolong Nature Reserve into a modern released a captive: Xiangxiang, a mildfreeway. Conservation biologist George mannered 5-year-old male. He was so badly
Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society mauled by a wild male last December that
in New York City was the first Westerner to rangers had to treat him at the reserves panda
study giant pandas in China when he came to hospital before releasing him back into the
Wolong, about 500 kilometers southwest of wild. Then in late March, rangers found
Wanglang, in 1980. Now, more than 100,000 Xiangxiang dead; apparently he had fallen
tourists every year flock to Wolong, the from a tree after clashes with other pandas, says
countrys most famous panda reserve, to see Zhang. The reintroduction program is very
its 120 captive-bred pandas, the largest such diff icult, he admits. But he will not be
population in the world.
deterred: Wolong plans to release another bred
panda within the next 5 years.
Panda experts agree that the
species needs all the help it can get.
Tourism and development are nipping at the reserves. Tourists
leave garbage, and villagers lay traps for game
animals that inadvertently snare pandas, says
Lu. Conservation International is testing a new community-based conservation
model this year that will give
villagers financial incentives
to protect panda habitat outside the reserves. Three villages abutting Wanglang have
signed on, and negotiations are
under way to add 100 more sites in
Cut to shreds. Panda habitat today covers
the next 3 years.
a tiny fraction of the bears historic range.
The central government, too, is
taking action. Its Wildlife ConserMore captives would be better, argues vation Protection Program seeks to bring
Wolong Director Zhang Hemin, who is aiming 90% of wild pandas under the reserve system,
for 300 within the next decade. A population from 75% today. In the 1980s, there were fewer
of this size, he says, could ensure the pandas than 20 reserves for pandas. Now there are 60.
survival for the next century while retaining The State Forestry Administration is putting a
95% of its genetic diversity.
lot of money to set up this panda reserve netA decade ago, the captive birth of a single work, says Wei, who notes that two or three
cub would cause a huge media sensation. Back reserves are added each year, on average.
then, if a mother bore twins, she would invariDown from the mountain, Zhans moniably abandon one and raise the other. In 2000, toring team encounters a pair of blue-eared
breeders figured out how to raise twins by pheasants, their most dramatic wildlife sightallowing one cub at a time to stay with the ing all day. No black-and-white bamboo
mother and raising the other by hand. They eatersbut thats not necessarily a bad thing,
frequently swap cubs so both learn survival says Zhan. It means the pandas are somelessons from mom. Now Wolong is trying to where in the highlands, deep in the bamboo
outdo last years record number of births by forest, and safe from humans for another day.
artificial insemination.
JERRY GUO
Not everyone is handing out cigars. Lu Jerry Guo is a writer in New Haven, Connecticut.

www.sciencemag.org

SCIENCE

VOL 316

Published by AAAS

18 MAY 2007

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gauge how many pandas are prowling

Wanglang, Zhan spent much of 2003 and 2004
combing the area for precious panda droppings. His zeal almost got him killedin 2004,
he slipped and broke his spine and had to
endure a bumpy 400-kilometer ride to a hospital in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province.
He was not paralyzed, however, and returned to
work after a 3-month-long convalescence.
Zhans team extracted DNA from the mucus
in 2005 and used genetic markers called
microsatellite loci to identify individuals.
Based on this DNA-fingerprinting technique,
Zhan says there are at least 66 pandas in
Wanglanga big jump over the 27 estimated
in the Third National Survey. That census, in
1998, employed the traditional bamboofragment method, which differentiates individuals by comparing the lengths of chewed
bamboo in scat. Zhan argues that the bamboo fragment methods total of 1596 pandas
in Chinas 60 panda reserves lowballed the actual population size.
We found the population is much
more than we thought in the past,
says the Institute of Zoologys
Wei Fuwen, senior author of the
Current Biology paper.
In an unpublished letter to
Current Biology, Garshelis and five
colleagues expressed doubts about
Zhans analysis. Our concern is
that its jumping the gun, says
Garshelis. They only have one
data point [Wanglang], which
they extrapolated to the entire
range. And that data point is suspect, he says. Garshelis thinks that
Wanglang simply cant support that
many pandas; according to Zhans
estimate, one section of the reserve
has two pandas per square kilometerthe highest recorded density for any bear species.
A population doubling at Wanglang is
impossible, argues Wang Dajun, a panda
researcher at Peking University, because
habitat there shrank steadily until at least
1998, when the logging ban was enacted.
By comparing satellite images from 1990
and 2000, Wang quantified a heavy degree
of deforestation that, he says, must be
harmful to pandas. Jiang agrees that habitat fragmentation imperils panda populations in smaller, isolated reservesbut
not Wanglang.
The uncertainty means the giant panda
will remain classified as endangered in an
IUCN report slated for release later this
year, the f irst panda update in a decade,
says Garshelis. I get the feeling the popu-

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Giant Panda Numbers Are Surging--or Are They?

Jerry Guo (May 18, 2007)
Science 316 (5827), 974-975. [doi: 10.1126/science.316.5827.974]

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