Ever since Manhattan socialite Ruth Harkness set foot in San Francisco in 1936 holding a baby giant panda—the first living panda to enter the United States—the world has been enamored with this enigmatic black and white bear. Yet, despite the giant panda's immense global popularity, this animal is listed as endangered under the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, IUCN)—the de facto catalog of the world's most endangered species. Thus, how is it that the world's oldest surviving bear species—with an ancestry stretching back 7–8 million years—is considered endangered?