The fate of polar bears weighs on our collective conscience more than pandas because of melting ice caps.

NPR: Environmentalists Point Beyond Global Warming

There are about 600 pandas left in the wild: more than half the bamboo forests where they live have disappeared in the last 30 years.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | UN alert on threat to wild bamboo

China said in May 2005 it would give the island two giant pandas, but their departure was delayed for more than three years.

CNN: China sends goodwill pandas to Taiwan