China has started its once-a-decade census of endangered giant pandas, according to forestry authorities in southwest Sichuan Province, a vital habitat of the rare species.

The census, the fourth since it was first launched in the 1970s, began on June 26 with a pilot survey in the Wanglang National Reserve in Mianyang City. The reserve is believed to have the largest number of wild pandas in the country.

The pilot survey was expected to end by early July, and then the nationwide census would start, said a forestry official in Sichuan.

Census takers will collect panda droppings for DNA analysis, which will allow zoologists to track individual pandas and accurately estimate the number of pandas living in the wild.

The census will ascertain not only the number of wild pandas but also their living conditions, age structure and change of habitat.

The previous census 10 years ago counted 1,596 wild pandas in China with 1,206 of them living in Sichuan, including 230 in the Wanglang Reserve and its nearby regions.