Save the pandas?
This is something that gets my goat every time I see it referenced in a nature documentary, on a T-shirt, wherever. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ll own up to the fact that the immediate impetus for this post came from a Facebook game. I guess it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The game is called Pet Society, and it’s in the (honestly pretty boring) style of virtual pet games like Tamagotchis but with more modern flair and Flash animation. You keep your pet healthy and happy, decorate your pet’s home, and interact with your pet’s friends (the pets of your Facebook friends). It’s a good time-filler for those days when my work in lab involves a lot of waiting, but not for long enough periods to get anything meaningful accomplished while I wait. Here’s a cropped screenshot from the “Garden Store,” where your pet can purchase seeds to plant or various lawn furniture and decorative items.
What is that NPC cashier talking about? Well, if you play any games on Facebook, you won’t be surprised to hear that the game includes a way to spend real money on “premium” items for your pet. This NPC is advertising the fact that the makers of Pet Society have recently partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to offer WWF- and giant panda-themed items for sale. 10% of the profits will apparently go to the WWF.
Now, that’s a good thing in general. Although I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist for reasons I’ve explained here before, as far as I know the WWF is a good and worthwhile organization. I’m in favor of conservation. I’m generally irritated by products that advertise themselves as a way to donate to a worthy cause, because if the product’s junk you’re still wasting 90% or whatever portion of the money you spend. You’d be better off just donating the handful of change directly, or better yet, donating the full cost of the item (or more) instead of buying something you don’t need. But fine, if it’s more effective at raising money, go ahead.
However, that’s not really the topic I want to discuss. I want to talk about giant pandas in particular. Why are we so fixated on saving them? I suspect it is mostly because they are adorable. And they certainly are. But let’s look at the different reasons why species survival is such a challenge for giant pandas. (I’ve heard all of this from many sources, but I’m confirming the specifics by checking this article.)
- Poachers hunt pandas for their fur.
- Their habitat is shrinking, leading not just to reduced living space but also to reduced availability of the bamboo that makes up basically their entire diet.
- Basically their entire diet is bamboo, and if it’s not available they’ll pretty much starve. (With the teeth and digestive system of an omnivore, they are capable and allegedly willing to eat other things, but if given the choice they apparently go for bamboo the vast, vast majority of the time.)
- Bamboo hardly has any nutritional value for pandas because they cannot completely break down the cellulose, so they need to eat constantly in order to stay healthy.
- Female pandas are only fertile for 2-3 days a year.
- Female pandas raise their cubs alone, and are only able to care for one at a time. When a panda gives birth to multiple cubs, she chooses one to raise and lets the other/s die.
- It’s very difficult to convince pandas to mate in captivity. (Zookeepers have actually tried giving pandas Viagra and showing them videos of mating pandas to get them in the mood.)
Now, the first two are caused by humans. We ought to enforce laws and crack down on poaching in general; it’s bad for many species. We should also be more conscious of our impact on the world’s ecosystems. Nevertheless, it seems to me that humans are maybe not the main problem. To paraphrase the NRA slogan, it’s pandas that are killing pandas. They’re only barely able to reproduce. They can’t seem to feed themselves properly. (They’ve even evolved a kind of thumb out of a wristbone, so great is their need to hold stalks of bamboo in order to survive.) As much as I am in favor of conservation efforts, I remember that new species develop and become extinct all the time, and that this happens based on how well-adapted a particular species is for survival. The panda does not seem all that well-adapted. I think we be focusing our conservation efforts on animals that are working with us for their survival, not against us.
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