Species 2: The Giant Panda

When you think of a Giant Panda, you think of the large black and white bear in Asia eating bamboo. You might even find them adorable. But I have news people, bad news. Now before present this news, let me start off by saying I love animals and think they are beautiful creatures.

However, the news is... that of all the animals that are endangered, pandas are the absolute number one contender for being on the list.
"What? But but... how could you say something so horrible!"
Well, because its true. Before I explain why, lets get a sense of who we are dealing with.

Just look, his eyes use trickery.

Lets examine the panda above. He is quite cute, has loving eyes, and seems to be pretty happy. Let's name this panda Steve. Steve's people can be found in coniferous forests in mountain ranges near Central China. Steve's diet consists of almost entirely bamboo. 

Time out. Let's go deeper into the diet of the Giant Panda. Their diet it their first fault. As elaborated on by the website HowStuffWorks the dietary system of a panda is more fit for digesting meat. In fact, it sucks at digesting bamboo. That's right, pandas literally don't know how to capture prey in the wild so they eat bamboo which they can barely digest. In fact, the pandas must eat 26-28 pounds of bamboo per day to have the energy to live. 

This tastes so bad, but it's all I have. 

Now, I don't want to make the panda's seem like bad creatures, they are pretty cool in the fact they can climb trees extremely well even though they weigh over 330 pounds as an adult. This is comparable to an obese person actually climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator. 

Besides the issue with the panda's diet, they are basically trying to die. The mating season of a panda lasts about 3 weeks in springtime and only about 2-3 days of this time period does the female panda have the ability to conceive. In fact, most zoos find it difficult to get the pandas to mate at all. 

So we have a creature who has a horrid diet of hard to digest bamboo and mates only 3 weeks a year. They are definitely trying hard to get out of that endangered zone right? But although pandas seem quite out of the loop of their evident extinction, we still love them and care for them. 

One of the largest issues according to the World Wildlife organization is the loss of habitat in the wild. With the pandas eating 26 pounds of bamboo everyday they require lost of forest space. However with industrialization raving at large forest destruction is a major issue. China does have reserves to protect pandas but only about 61% of the panda population is protected. The WWF is aiming to increase policy-level conservation in China. We can help too by raising awareness. 

Just remember, we love pandas, but don't be too sympathetic. Learn from their horrible diet choices and look for something in your life to remove and improve. Check out the Smithsonian National Zoo website for more information.