Pandas Are Overrated
- Thread starter pachyderm pro
- Start date
I don't disagree with the thread title......
But this is how Kevin Kline feels about the matter.
But this is how Kevin Kline feels about the matter.
Calgary Zoo, in Canada, had almost 200,000 visitors in the first MONTH of showcasing Giant Pandas to the public. The crowds are apparently jam-packed and the black-and-white blobs will be there for the next 5 years. Just think of how much money those 200,000 people spent on food, drinks, parking, souvenirs, etc.
Pandas is cute and adorable, and can attract a huge number of visitors. However, having a panda is incredibly expensive and the zoo may "waste" a lot of money on it.(i wonder how Ahtari can keep them)
I agree with almost everything in this video...
...However, I can't stand the thought of ANY more species going extinct at the hands of humans.
Yes, but the experience of pretty much every zoo is that the numbers revert to average after the first year or so. And Calgary will be paying for those pandas each year for the five years.
They are indeed overrated! They just sleep and eat bamboo all day. As for Chinese species, I'd rather see Pere David's Deer or Takin in zoos.
Eating and sleeping, they have a lot in common with most large carnivores.
Giant pandas are really fascinating animals, honestly. Highly unusual and divergent in their family to the point that they were considered either procyonids or just lone oddballs in the Carnivora. They're inherently striking in appearance, not just the interesting markings but the unique shapes and forms of their faces, those strange cat-like slit pupils, and their odd "thumbs". They're so unlike any other bear. And carnivorans that revert to a more vegetarian diet like them, kinkajous and maned wolves are fascinating to me.
Their mass popularity is highly understandable, as well. But, at least from the standpoint of a zoogoer, sometimes it can feel like they overstay their welcome. Living right next to Atlanta I've seen them regularly for much of my life. They do get a little old after a while. They definitely don't 'do much'. Most likely one look into their enclosure won't be too different from the last. In my case, it rarely ever has been. Sometimes one is in the outside portion rather than indoors but that's the extent of that variation. And the nearby (fairly large) gift shop dedicated entirely to panda merchandise speaks volumes. Neither popularity nor activity levels in front of zoo visitors should be considered a prerequisite for a species' value, of course. I've tried to appreciate them a little more, myself. Even watching them chow down on bamboo it's easy to marvel at the sheer strength of their jaws and the well-adapted morphology of their grasping paws
But on the ecological end, yes, they're super niche, to their misfortune. The opposite of the generalist, adaptable brown and American black bears. Other threatened species share their habitat, though. Maybe they don't impact those other species as much as others might (although that professor discounting the profound effect elephants and wolves have on ecosystems puzzled me. Who is that guy anyway?) but I do believe they can be extremely powerful ambassadors for that region. This is why ambassador species are important, something else the professor discounted. Most people will inherently gravitate towards certain, more typically charismatic species. That's just the way it is. We can draw attention to amphibians and beetles all we want but large carnivorans, cetaceans, elephants, apes and sea turtles will remain favorites. If this is the case, conservationists do and should continue to use this to their advantage to gain support in defending the ecosystems those animals share with countless others, right down to the tiniest invertebrates.
That said - I definitely agree that less could be spent on the pandas' survival in particular, over protecting their habitat instead. Pandas aren't actually doing as bad in the wild now, comparatively speaking, are they? They're Vulnerable, no longer Endangered (something else the video botched). Their wild population is around 1,500 and reportedly on the rise. Not a bad shift from 30 years or so ago. But they likely will be Endangered again, soon, along with many, many other taxa if attention isn't continued to be given to their habitats. On the other hand, it could be argued that enough suitable land remaining for their long-term survival, regardless of efforts made, is questionable.
So despite this unexpectedly long post I'm torn. They could be considered overrated but they have value, not just intrinsically but to huge amounts of people, that can be channeled into saving many species at once. I think it's worth at least trying to drive more funds to protected land than the captive breeding, capitalizing on Ailuropoda melanoleuca's fame in a different way.
Their mass popularity is highly understandable, as well. But, at least from the standpoint of a zoogoer, sometimes it can feel like they overstay their welcome. Living right next to Atlanta I've seen them regularly for much of my life. They do get a little old after a while. They definitely don't 'do much'. Most likely one look into their enclosure won't be too different from the last. In my case, it rarely ever has been. Sometimes one is in the outside portion rather than indoors but that's the extent of that variation. And the nearby (fairly large) gift shop dedicated entirely to panda merchandise speaks volumes. Neither popularity nor activity levels in front of zoo visitors should be considered a prerequisite for a species' value, of course. I've tried to appreciate them a little more, myself. Even watching them chow down on bamboo it's easy to marvel at the sheer strength of their jaws and the well-adapted morphology of their grasping paws
But on the ecological end, yes, they're super niche, to their misfortune. The opposite of the generalist, adaptable brown and American black bears. Other threatened species share their habitat, though. Maybe they don't impact those other species as much as others might (although that professor discounting the profound effect elephants and wolves have on ecosystems puzzled me. Who is that guy anyway?) but I do believe they can be extremely powerful ambassadors for that region. This is why ambassador species are important, something else the professor discounted. Most people will inherently gravitate towards certain, more typically charismatic species. That's just the way it is. We can draw attention to amphibians and beetles all we want but large carnivorans, cetaceans, elephants, apes and sea turtles will remain favorites. If this is the case, conservationists do and should continue to use this to their advantage to gain support in defending the ecosystems those animals share with countless others, right down to the tiniest invertebrates.
That said - I definitely agree that less could be spent on the pandas' survival in particular, over protecting their habitat instead. Pandas aren't actually doing as bad in the wild now, comparatively speaking, are they? They're Vulnerable, no longer Endangered (something else the video botched). Their wild population is around 1,500 and reportedly on the rise. Not a bad shift from 30 years or so ago. But they likely will be Endangered again, soon, along with many, many other taxa if attention isn't continued to be given to their habitats. On the other hand, it could be argued that enough suitable land remaining for their long-term survival, regardless of efforts made, is questionable.
So despite this unexpectedly long post I'm torn. They could be considered overrated but they have value, not just intrinsically but to huge amounts of people, that can be channeled into saving many species at once. I think it's worth at least trying to drive more funds to protected land than the captive breeding, capitalizing on Ailuropoda melanoleuca's fame in a different way.
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Well stated. Now that the CCP has the husbandry sorted, I hope they divert some of those resources into protecting and expanding the panda's historical range.
Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Macao got free pandas in exchange for free-trade agreements. I think paying cash might be a better long term deal.
Its not that I don't think pandas are not worth it due to the public interest in them, and the attendance spike that they get. I mean every chance that I am by a zoo that has panda's I try to make it there to see them.
However, I feel that there is too much money spent on them. Imagine if they took the same amount of money that they spend on pandas and direct it at every animal that a zoo had in its collection? Would we have as many animals going extinct or would we have a larger population that we could start repopulating the wild with the spare animals that the zoos do not need?
However, I feel that there is too much money spent on them. Imagine if they took the same amount of money that they spend on pandas and direct it at every animal that a zoo had in its collection? Would we have as many animals going extinct or would we have a larger population that we could start repopulating the wild with the spare animals that the zoos do not need?
I really dislike lines like these. I don't think I've heard anyone complain that say, Lammergeiers, Great grey owls, Scarce large blues, Red-underwing skippers, Giant anteaters or (to leave the animal kingdom,) any species-specific Orobanche is a biological dead end. They all inhabit a very specific nice, but it only becomes a dead end when the species goes extinct. Until then it's a chance game. Sure, often the generalists have an advantage when the world around them changes, but that doesn't stop certain specialists to survive or adapt too. I image Giant pandas would do just fine as long as we don't cut down their bamboo forests.
I wouldn't call giant pandas a biological dead end personally, and I didn't at all mean to indicate that I think specialist species in general are essentially doomed. Specialist species are amazing, and many of them have thrived for so long for a reason, on diets or within habitats that many generalist species couldn't possibly cope with. But the adaptations of several of the species you've mentioned allow them much greater freedom to adapt to environmental changes (i.e. us) than the giant panda.
Giant anteaters' primary requirements are enough ants or termites, both ubiquitous families all throughout tropical South America - they're at home in both forests and open habitats. Great grey owls need dense, cold forests, the amount of which that remain in North America and Eurasia (much of which is still uninhabited) completely dwarf the giant panda's remaining suitable habitat and are in far, far less danger than it (for now, anyway). Bearded vultures thrive in places unsuitable for human life for the most part - high, rugged mountains, provided there are enough mammals or birds to live off the remains of. No shortage of these throughout central and west Asia, although I can't say if their situation in the Alps or Ethiopia is as good (both much closer and more accessible to humans than, say, the Himalayas or Tian-Shan). In the case of birds it also helps significantly that they can travel far more easily. Not to say these species aren't at risk in their own way, but their situation isn't as fragile.
But you're right, I don't think the giant panda would have ever been at risk of extinction by now had humans not evolved. The habitat they needed would have always been there - their range around the start of the Holocene covered a huge portion of eastern China almost up to where Beijing is today and as far south as northern Burma and Vietnam. They were in a pretty good spot before we came along. Bamboo forests aren't as easy to keep around as termites or high rugged mountains when you have settlements and farmland cropping up wherever it's possible for them to, or have people constantly seeking out natural resources to exploit.
Giant anteaters' primary requirements are enough ants or termites, both ubiquitous families all throughout tropical South America - they're at home in both forests and open habitats. Great grey owls need dense, cold forests, the amount of which that remain in North America and Eurasia (much of which is still uninhabited) completely dwarf the giant panda's remaining suitable habitat and are in far, far less danger than it (for now, anyway). Bearded vultures thrive in places unsuitable for human life for the most part - high, rugged mountains, provided there are enough mammals or birds to live off the remains of. No shortage of these throughout central and west Asia, although I can't say if their situation in the Alps or Ethiopia is as good (both much closer and more accessible to humans than, say, the Himalayas or Tian-Shan). In the case of birds it also helps significantly that they can travel far more easily. Not to say these species aren't at risk in their own way, but their situation isn't as fragile.
But you're right, I don't think the giant panda would have ever been at risk of extinction by now had humans not evolved. The habitat they needed would have always been there - their range around the start of the Holocene covered a huge portion of eastern China almost up to where Beijing is today and as far south as northern Burma and Vietnam. They were in a pretty good spot before we came along. Bamboo forests aren't as easy to keep around as termites or high rugged mountains when you have settlements and farmland cropping up wherever it's possible for them to, or have people constantly seeking out natural resources to exploit.
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That is true for many species. Tim Flannery's 'A Gap in Nature' and similar books include many species that have become extinct due to humans. Some of the species were kept in zoos in the last 100 years. I feel that the saddest extinction involved the passenger pigeon, a species that was the most abundant bird on the planet.
I am opposed to panda scam with china charging millions of dollars to loan pandas to zoos.