Photos by amivitale | These charming creatures are a testament to what can happen when we work together and value nature and our environment. In 1990 the global wild panda population was approximately 1,100 individuals, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature placed the bears on its list of threatened species. Thanks to massive Chinese and international efforts, though, the pandas rebounded, and in 2016 their status was upgraded to vulnerable. Today more than 1,800 live in the wild. For more than 30 years, researchers have been working on breeding and releasing pandas, augmenting existing populations, and protecting their habitats—and they’re finally having success. They’re taking captive-born pandas and releasing them back into the wild. These bears will have no lines of schoolchildren waiting to meet them or a fan page on Facebook. And as the pandas trundle off into the wild, they take with them hope for their entire species. The slow and steady incline in the populati...