The Giant Panda Argument

The news recently that giant pandas are no longer listed as endangered was met with widespread jubilation. Not so much jubilation from me, who makes up a minority of people who think pandas should be left to die out. Sounds extreme, but let me address the common critics of this argument who unfortunately are too naive about the current state of affairs.
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http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/how-argue-someone-who-smirkily-says-pandas-deserve-die
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To start with I'd just like to clarify that I don't wish death on pandas. I'm not a sadistic asshole, rather a zoologist that would actually like to see a positive change being made to the world, which won't happen unless we curb the funding of pointless projects trying in vain to save an evolutionary flawed species. The diet is a primary example of just why pandas have become threatened. This article is correct in saying that the recent decline in pandas is due to human activities rather than their diet, which has been primarily vegetarian for millions of years, but that doesn't instantly make their diet alright. If we're serious conservationists then we have to play the hand we're dealt, and a diet that provides barely any energy combined with a pathetically low fertility rate is a monumental problem when trying to bring a species back from the brink of extinction. This isn't a question of how evolution works, although unfortunately I have to say an unsuitable diet for a healthy physiology does decrease relative fitness, so actually the diet is heavily selected for in ecosystems, thus changing the evolutionary path in many organisms. So contrary to what this article would have you believe the panda's diet is a huge concern when deciding where conservation resources should be applied.

This writer can shift the goalposts as much as they want and compare the panda's evolutionary traits to adaptations of the vastly different modern human population, but the fact is that humans aren't endangered, whereas a lot of the planet's wildlife is, with sacrifices needing to be made in what conservation funds can be spent on. If you're pouring millions of pounds into a project then you damn sure should be able to ensure the animal you're sponsoring is not eating what has proven to be an unhealthy and energy deficient diet. Maybe there is an advantage to bamboo that would explain why pandas decided against radically reverting their diet back to what their physiology was once adapted too, but this hasn't been proven yet, and so has no place in this conservation based argument.

Again, if we're to use Darwinian principles here we have to concede that a panda has very low fitness, and as such has a very low ability to withstand environmental change. That makes conservation methods difficult considering this organism makes survival an impossibility without human intervention. So to say there are no good or bad breeding strategies is absurd when the limited funding for conservation is taken into account. Not only is that a completely unrealistic statement, but it's completely against the idea of natural selection. I'm not blaming pandas for this, but we have to face the facts that when conservation resources get as low as they are now only the strong and most important organisms should be allowed to survive; which evidently isn't the panda. You have all the evidence here to see that panda's are an evolutionary dead end, yet for some reason the moral high ground is more important.

The main issue here again is that we're bothering with this expensive conservation method in the first place. If a captive panda has a lack of energy to reproduce then it's stupid spending all these valuable monetary resources on something that faces far greater threats than mere population. Maintaining a solely captive population is even more stupid, but I'll address that point later. This argument here is just shifting the goalposts again by comparing the vastly different behaviors of pandas and humans. The fact's are that pandas do not adapt well to captive conditions as you quite rightly state, so what's the point in funding this obviously flawed system? It's again this assumption that I'm blaming pandas. I'm not, I just want to see their funding cut from this useless system.

A reason why you might sink some money into the panda conservation scheme is that there's a huge amount of evidence to suggest that funding panda's also helps other local wildlife. In fact I'm not aware of a better ambassador species that helps it's native habitat. However the point made in this article is hypothetical. Conservation is a game of risk and reward, and if you think we shouldn't change a critically failing system because the alternative might not work then we might as well admit defeat for global conservation efforts. I can and will complain about the cost of pandas because it's relative to the pittance spent on other key conservation issues around the world. The disproportionate amount spent on various endangered species is alarming, yet wasting money on pandas is suddenly acceptable because 'hey it's less than the defense budget'. Obviously the defense budget is going to be fucking higher than the budget for conservation because they're two totally different things.

The real problem is that we're stuck with this outdated principle of conservation that revolves around the individual. Ecology and conservation have moved on to people integrating with nature rather than isolating themselves from it. Managing ecosystems is the key, not pouring money into individual organisms with the hope that the umbrella effect they produce will bring prosperity to a region. And let me tell you there is far more worrying trends in China to pour money into. You inadvertently raise a good point here that China is essentially using the Panda as a commodity. This is from a country with the worst record of animal trafficking on the planet by an absolute country mile, so why should we be encouraging the funding of the Chinese state? The conservation sites set up for the Panda's are numerous and unsustainably managed, instead relying on captive populations as a primary source of individuals, which is a completely top heavy pyramid destined to fail. with the Panda scheme being there attempt at blowing smoke up the asses of worldwide conservationists.

It sounds barbaric but humans are at the stage now where we do have to start selecting which species are going to have to expire. There's a huge amount of naivety in this post that simply bypasses the serious argument in favor of defending pandas without ever justifying why we should be spending so much on their conservation. Essentially what this argument all boils down too is that we have a moral responsibility to save everything we put in a position of peril, which just isn't possible. Yeah sure pandas are a great ambassador species, and they've helped protect other animals, but there are alternatives that have much more effective and sustainable conservation schemes; such as tigers or rhinos. I have personally been arguing to ignore this single species policy, but that approach is never really alluded to in this article, just hypothetical points from 'Mystic Meg' about which areas would be doomed if not for pandas. How the fuck can you possibly make the argument that bamboo, an incredibly fast growing weed, is reliant on pandas without a single source? It's these huge points made with little explanation that make me realise this article hasn't got a clue about the larger picture.

So no, it's not simply 'edgy' for me to make a serious argument here, and actually one out of necessity. I wish we could say at the current time humanity is in a position to save every animal out there, but we are not. Conservation is now a question of counting our losses and protecting the greatest amount of critical habitat by whatever means necessary, which I would argue doesn't incorporate the struggles of pandas. I certainly think we should cut the huge financial foothold that panda's are relying on to survive. Conservation is all about targeting the richest areas of biodiversity and attempting to sustainably maintain them, not creating a system where individual species rely on a generous financial footing to survive. Rural China is by no means a biodiversity hotspot, so isn't desperately in need of a great umbrella species like the panda. The giant panda conservation scheme, although notable, certainly isn't sustainable for the bucketloads of cash that are continually poured into it, and is only doing a satisfactory job of boosting the numbers of a species that's favorable to various organisations but actually in terms of ecology does relatively fuck all for it's habitat. All this for such stupid money is why we should give up on pandas.