China's panda could be extinct in 2-3 generations: report

China's giant panda could be extinct in just two to three generations as rapid economic development is infringing on its way of life, state media said Monday, citing an expert at conservation group WWF.

The problem is that the pandas' habitat is being split up into ever smaller patches, preventing the animals from roaming freely for mating partners and in turn endangering their gene pool, the Global Times reported.

"If the panda cannot mate with those from other habitats, it may face extinction within two to three generations," said Fan Zhiyong, Beijing-based species programme director for WWF. "We have to act now."

The risk of inbreeding is increasing, threatening to reduce the panda's resistance to diseases and lowering its ability to reproduce, the paper said.

Fan said that highways pose major restrictions on the panda's free movement.

"We may have to give up building some infrastructure," Fan said. "I don't know the solution to this problem."

There are about 1,590 pandas living in the wild around China, mostly in southwestern Sichuan, northern Shaanxi and northwestern Gansu provinces. A total of 180 have been bred in captivity, according to earlier reports.

In addition to environmental constraints, the animals' notoriously low libidos have frustrated efforts to boost their numbers.

Kenya losing 100 lions every year: conservation group Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades. Cattle herders who kill the lions in retaliation for attacks on their stock have been blamed for much of the decline, the organisation's spokesman Paul Udoto told AFP. Habitat destruction, disease and the rising human population also played a role in the drop from 2,749 lions seven years ago to the current 2,000, Udoto said. "We need to take measures to stabilise that number at 2,000 or increase it," he explained. "Communities are the largest threat to the lions and other cats." Udoto added that educating people on the behavior and importance of the cats to tourism is a priority among other efforts to save them. Tourism, which relies on Kenya's renowned wildlife safaris and sun-drenched Indian Ocean beaches, is a key foreign exchange earner.

Breeders have resorted to tactics such as showing them "panda porn" videos of other pandas mating, and putting males through "sexercises" aimed at training up their pelvic and leg muscles for the rigours of copulation.