And there’s the problem: by being “cute”, they divert vital efforts and resources away from where they’re needed. It’s reckoned that several species become extinct every day. Over 3,000 are currently critically endangered through one cause or another, and most of these are struggling like hell to hold on. Pandas aren’t even trying, but who gets all the attention? Who’s on the logo of the WWF? Giant bloody Pandas, every time.
Look at them: they’re bears (I know they used to be thought to be more closely related to raccoons, but they’re not – they’re bears). Bears are one of the most successful and wide-spread mammals on the planet. Pandas, along with all the other bears, evolved over millions of years to be omnivorous – large, strong, efficient predators, but also able to take advantage of almost any other source of food available. The one common food source they can’t thrive on is grass, because it’s mostly cellulose, and they (like us) can’t digest it.
And what do pandas eat almost exclusively? Bamboo! Big, woody, stalks of grass! They live in forests, surrounded by an astonishing variety of things that are vastly more tasty and nutritious, and for no good biological reason they choose to live on the very thing that’s guaranteed to keep them permanently on the edge of starvation. A panda has to do nothing but eat all day, just to maintain enough strength to amble to the next clump of bamboo. Bear in mind that all of the bamboo of any given variety will entirely die off prior to regrowing, so for part of the year anything that lives on that variety has nothing to eat. A panda’s idea of a healthy balanced diet is “more than one type of bamboo”.
They’re the whining, self-pitying, overweight goth teenagers of the animal kingdom; moping in their bedroom, listening to Morrissey as they sit on their furry fat arses, stuffing their faces with jungle junk food and bleating that nobody understands what it’s like to be endangered.
The only hope I see for them (and it’s a slim one) is that apparently, from time to time, one of them (usually a female, it seems) presumably looks around her, thinks “sod this for a game of soldiers – I’d kill for a kebab” and runs down during the night to the nearest farm and nabs a sheep. Sadly (for the pandas) there’s no sign of this becoming a trend.
So there: I know it sounds harsh, and I realize they’re in trouble, but I’ve no time for a species that won’t put in the effort. They’ve wilfully chosen a lifestyle that puts them in danger, and we’d all be better off if they suffered the consequences and stopped hogging the limelight. It’s time Ailuropoda melanoleuca understood that evolution makes no exceptions for cuteness.