This might be an IMHO question.
Would giant pandas go extinct if it weren’t for people? (“We have to save them; they’re so cute!”) Would their apathy about screwing be a liability, or are they perfectly adapted to the growth cycle of bamboo or lack of natural enemies, and it’s only a liability because we’ve destroyed their habitat?
Douglas Adams explained a bit of this with regards to the Kakapo - they’ve got an extremely inefficient mating strategy that currently threatens them with extinction, but they evolved in an environment where they had no predation whatsoever, and under those conditions a quick and efficient reproduction system can result in large and unpredictable boom/bust cycles (basically, overpopulation followed by mass starvation which can result in complete extinction) meaning a slow reproduction system is actually more stable in the long run.
If this is true for Pandas or exactly how such a system would evolve I dunno.
ETA: Adams’ talk (long video, the Kakapo part starts about 26 minutes in)
Why Pandas Are Dicks
N.S.F.W. language.
Not helpful, but appropriate.
It is very dangerous to overgeneralize about the development of reproduction systems, and especially in terms of the benefit to the species as a whole rather than individual organisms, which are, after all, the basic unit upon which environmental pressures act. Natural selection is not adverse to boom & bust cycles, and in fact these often exist in well-defined predator-prey relationships where the population ratio will show a chaotic relationship within definable bounds. However, there is an implicit assumption that both species are sufficiently flexible to be able to increase and decrease gestation rates in response to varying predator-prey ratios.
In the case of the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), its gestation interval, gestational period, and length of rearing by the mother are similar to other members of family Ursidae, though they are both less adaptable and less robust than the other bears (genera Ursus, Tremarctinae). The lack of adaptability and lower overall rates of reproduction can be primarily attributed to the protein- and lipid-poor nature of their diet of bamboo shoots with only occasional additions of animal material (insects, fish, eggs), fruit, and honey. Because the bamboo is so nutritionally vacant, sows in the wild will be very picky about when they “choose” to mate (i.e. come into estrous), and will wait until they have adequate territory before investing in reproduction. The nearly complete destruction of the traditional habitat of the Giant Panda–the lowland bamboo forests of the Sichsuan provence–makes it very difficult for the female to claim enough space to be able to raise offspring to maturity. It is likely the same pressure that makes it nearly impossible for pandas to mate in captivity. The regrowth rate of bamboo is relatively constant and stable (provided the forests aren’t being cleared to make way for human development) and so on an evolutionary timescale there has been no real impetus for the Giant Panda to become more adaptable to changing conditions. The most unique adaptation of the Giant Panda is, of course, its opposable “thumb” (an elongated sesamoid which helps this create and the Red Panda “bear” open and consume bamboo shoots).
While not as adaptable as other ursidaes, they’re perfectly viable in the natural conditions in which they’ve evolved. However, those conditions require large swaths of bamboo forest and infrequent predation. Unlike other bears (particularly the highly adaptable American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) they’re not able to cope with and integrate with populations that compete for land.
Stranger