The panda rant!!

Pandas have sort of become the symbol of animal conservation but they really shouldn’t be. This post is about what we called at college “the panda rant” that one of my teachers (Helen Willmetts-smith) gave to every class she taught. It explains why pandas are responsible for their endangered status; basically it’s about how shit giant pandas are and why they should be left to die out.

1. They’re black and white, not exactly camouflage (and before you argue zebras are black and white they use their stripes as a sort of optical illusion that I will explain another day).
2. They mark their territory by standing upside down and peeing up a tree, not the best position for a black and white animal!!
3. They have a digestive system designed for meat but eat only bamboo, which is the probably one of hardest substance to digest in the world, they have to be eating for around 18 hours a day just to maintain their body weight. This is why they were originally not categorised as a bear because they didn’t appear to be carnivores but they should be.
4. Naturally bamboo dies out then regenerates but this takes some time so naturally their food source will run out for a while.
5. They don’t know how to have sex; pandas in a zoo in china actually had no idea how to copulate so they basically put on a video of pandas having sex to encourage them.
6. They don’t have enough energy to support a foetus properly s they’re born extremely premature (normally at around only 95 days) and for the most part don’t survive. Also if they give birth to twins they WILL abandon one of them because they know they can’t support it!!
7. When conservationist tried to release captive bread pandas into the wild the native pandas killed them, so they’re too lazy to hunt but not too lazy to kill their own species??
8. They don’t become sexually mature until 20 years of age.
9. The female ins only in heat for 2-3 days a year, not helpful when you’re a solitary creatures and need to find each other, impress the female and mate in that tiny space of time!!

So all in all they aren’t doing themselves any favours. Yes we’re not helping with pollution and deforestation but personally I feel our conservation efforts should be concentrated on a species that actually has a chance!!

So next time you feel emotionally manipulated by the WWFs adverts showing pandas just remember this or better yet think of the polar bears and other species that do everything they can to survive but thanks entirely to us they're dying out just as fast!!