Should we bother to save pandas?

They are trying to breed back the aurochs.

Prove it. The current issue is that they've run into a bottleneck of not being willing to breed. That's a problem.

Wait, why not use artificial insemination?

They have been trying to do it for years, apparently, but the first successful birth with artificial insemination wasn't until 2009. So it seems that it doesn't work very well. (From the Wikipedia article)

Normally I'm all for placing responsibility to humans, but pandas really have some naturally caused problems. For one thing, they have a carnivorous digestive system and a herbivorous diet. (They're carnivores who eat bamboo.)

Then again, humans destroy their habitat and hunt them, so yeah.

As long as humans want beef, I seriously doubt that that will happen.

If pandas went extinct what else would we watch on the news?

Whales.

An animal who can only eat one thing is doomed from the start, it's surprising that they've lasted this long.

They can eat other things, they're not quite opportunity eaters that will scarf down anything, but they aren't as locked down to bamboo as people think.

99% bamboo.

But yes, they can eat other things.

The whole point of preservation efforts is because we are not all-knowing God, we have no idea what is actually crucial and what is not to the ecosystem. If thirty years down the road we run into massive economic issue because we didn't bother to save them when we could have, that's our lost in GDP.

If we can't save them, oh well, but we should try. I really don't care about "let nature sort it out" arguments because 99% of the ecosystem in China is already completely wrecked or human-populated, so there's basically no point in saying that. There is no nature. It's just us. So we get to decide how we're going to interact with everything else within the system we've created. Do we wipe out everything else or do we try to preserve as much of it while still going forward technologically?

We are nature. Since when were we not animals? The idea that we're above nature and responsible for it strikes me as one of the most arrogant and misguided ideas of modern times. What we do is no less natural than beaver dams and termite mounds. As a species we just happen to be really really good at modifying our environment. Whether or not that will bite us in the ass later is a different issue, but that would still be natural.

Furthermore, it is not actually within our power to kill anything we want. We're not some clumsy giant trying not to step on things. We're fighting fair. We couldn't kill off rats, cockroaches or HIV even if we tried. And we do try. Rats, cockroaches and HIV are fighting back. Pandas do not fight back. And, well, that's their own problem. Given how few of them there are right now, I think we can safely exclude totally environmental collapse as a possibility of their absence, so what's the problem? Other than them being cute.

edited 11th May '11 5:31:54 PM by Clarste

You are suggesting an incredibly slippery slope. If we can justify not saving one specie, we can justify saving none of the other species.

Bunnies. Failing that, kittens.

And I'm not mentioning that because those are my favorite two critters nosiree.

...and why is that a problem?

End up with a world of humans and food yeast.

We would hopefully watch about endangered insect species copulating. It's cute. Like a baby panda. wtf news.

The only animals we should be actively supporting are ones we use in some capacity, weather as livestock or beasts of burden. Everything else should fend for its self.

Ever heard of symbiosis? It's not in our best interest to let everything die. But likewise not everything is important. Heck, it is in our best interest to kill certain things. Biodiversity has no inherent value.

^ Except the problem is that we don't know with complete certainty what's important and what's not. It's like trying to maintain a really complicated machine when we only know about 10-25% of the components' functions.

It's better to not lose anything rather than to get rid of something and then find out it messes up a ton of stuff.

edited 11th May '11 6:13:46 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Trying not to lose anything is beyond stupid though. These systems were never static in the first place. Artificially enforcing stasis is exactly what will get us all killed in the long run when anything does happen to the global environment. Which it will, someday.

Artificially enforcing change isn't gonna do us much better, anyway. Not with the crap kinds of change we do tend to successfully pull off.

Pandas bring happiness to people, and money to zoos. Therefore they are not worthless. However, they aren't exactly critical either. I definitely think their worth saving, but if they die out it won't be the end of the world either.

God should have definitely given Adam and Eve some instruction manuals before declaring them to have dominion over the Earth and its animals.