You know, I've always wondered whether our ancestors thought of the consequences of putting "giant" behind an animal's name. Sure, it may look big, but it probably wasn't always that big. I mean, you'd think that they would've realised that eventually, they would stumble upon the baby of this animal, and realise that putting "giant" in front of the name wasn't such a good idea. Giant panda babies. Panda babies, that are gigantic.
In any case, are pandas really so important? I mean, what do they even do? Can they make honey? Can they make flour? Can we synthesise plastic from their fur? Do their eyeballs contain the magic elixir that makes Diablo III come faster? Are they anything other than a slow-moving bear, that happens to have cute black-and-white fur? And seriously, the things just sit around all day, eating. They're the inspiration for Snorlax.
And what are we trying to do? We're trying to save these buggering animals. Yes, the whole world wants to save these things. These un-fascinating creatures that roam around bamboo forests, spend more than half their lives sleeping, and have slightly less effective cognitive function than a goldfish. Come on, even geckos are more interesting than that. Aside from being uninteresting, they're also probably a lot less important, comparatively. Look at it this way: Pandas number in the thousands now, much less than when they started out. I don't see The Day After Tomorrow happening in China because of that. There are other animals, like bats, whose populations are being decimated and no one gives a rats ass about them. And they're important, actually doing things that help us. You know, like eating those swarms of insects so that we don't get moths raining on our houses, or even pollinating certain plants.
Plus, vampire bats did a service to us by reminding us that there are things out there that suck our blood. Things that are actually sort of big and don't splatter when you clap your hands.
No, the reason that people want to save the boring bears of the East, is that they're cute. I mean, that's probably the only upside to their existence. They're nice to put on postcards and they are indeed very Chinese-like, since they're always photographed with bamboo in the background. Why they are cute is a mystery indeed. Why would a panda need to evolve to be cute? I would normally like to say that it was probably because cute animals are less likely to be killed for food,.Unfortunately, cute animals are also more likely to be turned into fur coats, thus counterbalancing the argument. I also happen to believe that pandas evolved their cuteness before humans were around to kill them.
It's Survival of the Cutest. No one cares about the microbe whose absence will devastate the Earth's ecosystem. It's not cute enough. No one cares about the worms and molluscs. They're not cute enough. (Although I happen to stand very strongly against such an opinion! Squids are like, the cutest invertebrates ever.) So instead of supporting the saving of important creatures, the world at large just goes "ooh, a panda! We can't let it die!" while remaining willfully ignorant of the number of other things they kill on a daily basis.
I blame this mindset on all those movies that involve a Chinese family pushing through forty-foot deep snow to save a stuffed panda.
I think people should stop worrying about the pandas, and focus on the amount of bamboo they could harvest if they didn't have to worry about pandas. Bamboo is something like the fastest growing woody plant on Earth, and is actually supposed to be a popular choice amongst tree-huggers who refuse to buy teak furniture.
From what I've read, bamboo flooring and roofing actually make nice house materials. They're supposedly able to keep the interior temperature at a comfortable range. I'm not really bothered to look this up, but does that really matter? I mean, it's wood. It wouldn't be all that much worse from another wood.
-Joe