Should we bother to save pandas?

I'm all for trying to save cute animals from extinction. But I feel we have done enough for the panda. There is no hope for them.

Their mating season is only 3 months of the year, and they can only conceive 3 days in those 3 months. That on top of the fact that they can only eat one single type of bamboo and only spend 3 hours a day awake, meaning that they simply never get around to making babies.

We are dealing with a creature that literally wouldn't give a fuck to save its own species. let them die.

edited 11th May '11 4:30:55 AM by joeyjojo

it depends. Are they actually an important keystone species of their environment, or otherwise vital to the food webs in their home range?

if not, then fuck no. theres a ton of other, far less cute, and far more endangered species who need attention.

The public doesnt give a shit though because panda's are adorable. nevermind we have Japanese dolphin genocide or insane overfishing and fishing down the food chain, or various uncute bugs and predators being slaughtered wholesale.

Save enough genetic material to clone them, then let the buggers die. I look forward to feasting on panda steaks some day. And I know I'm not alone in that.

If they aren't a keystone species, then yes we should let them go. The money could be better spent, and if we can't save everything, we need to prioritise.

edited 11th May '11 4:55:10 AM by LoniJay

And theres far more worrying extinctions in progress, like the annual mass slaughter of dolphins by japan thats not only going to likely eventually destroy the species but is why its pretty damned likely a high part of the unknowing japanese populace is going to experience the fun health benefits of traditional chinese medicine. (and by that I mean acute mercury poisoning)

Pandas are pretty much failures of evolution so yeah I agree we should save the animals that are actually important like bees and fish instead of a bunch of derpy fail bears.

edited 11th May '11 5:03:54 AM by Apocali

If we cannot, we should at least gather an extensive amount of preserved specimen and tissue samples, for the sake of future researchers. That's really important.

We should hunt the pandas to extinction, so they will no longer divert precious money from the preservation of chimpanzees. At the same time, we should hunt the chimpanzees to extinction, so they will no longer divert etcetera, etcetera...

edited 11th May '11 5:17:14 AM by EnglishIvy

Endangered is endangered. If we decide to let one species slide just because it is convenient, then it would create a precedent to do the same for many more. Many of which will probably be because of economic lobbies, like with Polar Bears in Alaska.

How do you hunt a species to extinction if it won't even breed on its own?

It's not the "convenient" aspect so much as the "self destructive tendencies" aspect.

edited 11th May '11 5:39:58 AM by Deboss

Frankly I don't think there's much reason to preserve species just because. There's a reason to save the environment, in that we live in the environment, but unless we somehow reverse those trends then these guys are all gonna die anyway for failing to adapt. It's just delaying the inevitable. Preserve some samples for scientific study and let nature take its course.

It's not our responsibility to keep every species on the planet alive. 99.999% of everything that ever lived is extinct, and there have been instances in geological history where 90% of species died out in a fairly short span of time. Life goes on. I'm more worried about becoming extinct ourselves.

Yeah this isn't like every other endangered creature where we are just trying to clean our own mess up. we stuck necks out for them and the lazy black and white bastards wouldn't even meet us half way.

As the frustrated Chinese zookeeper said to the last giant panda on earth, 'Fuck that!'

If the Giant Panda can be saved from extinction, than humanity, as an intelligent species, should do so. However, that does not mean that humanity should place the Panda at all before any other endangered species. Sharks, Gharials, and lots of other species need help just as much, if not more.

Those are my thoughts on the subject.

Well I'm not sure what the complaint is about because it's not like the whole world is pouring in resources into the matter. It's mostly the Chinese government doing anything because they're the ones who have much of the land that pandas live on. They don't do anything particularly special beyond (for China anyway)...

• Death penalty for poaching or attempting to poach any endangered species
• Deploy some locals to keep as much of any local wildlife alive and protect against hunting and such (think zookeeper except the animals are kept in the wild environment, thus no expensive zoos)
• Basic environmental conservation efforts (like reforestation)

Death penalty for poaching or attempting to poach any endangered species

That may sound harsh to some but china is big on capital punishment and unlike pandas there is no shortage of chinese people. :P

edited 11th May '11 7:40:10 AM by joeyjojo

We could always try and breed them. Try and do a pseudo-natural selection.

Provided they would actually breed in the first place.

It sounds kinda selfish for us to almost kill out an entire species, and when they have trouble repopulating, we go "Welp, they are failures as a species, let em die!"

now while we did kill more then our fair share it seems fairly clear they were on the way out.

Nature would have found a way if we didn't cause their species to go to crap though.

Sorry its just...its like tearing down a poor person's house and then going "HOW DARE YOU BE UNABLE TO GET BACK YOUR HOME!?"

Human beings managed to kill off the Passenger Pigeon.

At some point, you have to realize when you screw things up like that, it's a bad thing.

Despite years of effort and preservation they still won't breed in the wild or in captivity. I'm not sure that humans can do anything more at this point.

I say leave them alone, and let Nature decide whether they'll live or die.

I disagree, we screwed them up in the first place and its our responsibility to bring them back from the brink. We're the reason they are in such a bad state.

There's no strong reason to preserve species unless if, say, they are crucial for the environment. And I say this as an animal liberationist.