National Panda Day
Nature's cuddly ambassadors, with a diet that's 99% bamboo and an unmistakable appearance that's sure to melt your heart.
Leverage panda cuteness and conservation success to drive awareness and donations for wildlife protection while celebrating their reclassification from endangered to vulnerable status.
- Share panda facts and fun trivia to educate audiences on their 20-million-year history and unique bear family status
- Highlight conservation wins: pandas downgraded from endangered to vulnerable in 2016—celebrate human impact on species recovery
- Partner with zoos and wildlife organizations for virtual tours or educational content featuring live pandas
- Create merchandise or limited-edition panda-themed products with proceeds supporting conservation efforts
The panda has been around for almost 20 million years and is the oldest living species of bear. Yes, that’s right, any rumors you’ve heard to the contrary about them not being bears is false – they are in fact part of the Ursidae (bear) family, although they do also have a fair amount in common with raccoons.
While pandas have long been respected in their native China, their shy and solitary nature means they feature rarely in Chinese history and art – the likelihood of coming across one bear, let alone an embarrassment of pandas (the excellent collective noun for these animals!), has always been slim. Yet with their clumsy and lovable character, they’re incredibly popular, so much so that back in the 1980s a Taiwanese zoo even painted a sun bear black and white to try and pass it off as a giant panda!
National Panda Day grew out of the need to help protect these beautiful bears, as sadly these big guys require conservation efforts to even have a chance at recovering from their current depleted state. With no more than 2-3,000 left in the wild and only a few hundred in captivity, we risk losing these precious mammals forever if we don’t act.
National Panda Day aims to promote efforts to preserve their habitat from threats such as urbanization and climate change and to support their protection all around the world. Ultimately it’s a day of hope, as panda numbers are gradually starting to increase again thanks to decades of conservation work, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) downgrading the species from ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’ in 2016.
If we all work together, we can continue these amazing advancements and ensure that the panda is safe and thriving, now and in the future.
Learn some Panda facts
Get swept up in pandamania and help make sure they’re munching on bamboo for many more years to come! National Panda Day FAQsAre Pandas endangered?While Pandas were recently considered to be endangered, the effort to help them has been effective and they were downgraded from ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’ in 2016. The hope is that one day they can be removed from the list completely.[1]When is National Panda Day?Every year, National Panda Day falls on March 16, celebrating the world’s favorite black and white, fluffy, bamboo-eating bear.[1]Are Pandas dangerous?Although they rarely attack humans, Giant Pandas should still be considered dangerous. They have powerful teeth and claws, certainly making them capable of attacking if they feel threatened.[1]Are Pandas bears? Some people aren’t sure if Pandas are really bears because they look different. As it turns out, Giant Pandas are actually categorized in the bear family, but Red Pandas are the only members of their family but are closely related to raccoons.[1]Do Pandas hibernate?Though Giant Pandas are in the bear family, they do not hibernate like black bears do, and they also cannot stand up on their hind legs.[1]