In 2009, BBC presenter Chris Packham infamously mentioned that the panda, the cuddly teddy bear-like symbol of the world conservation motion, must be left to die. “Let them go together with a degree of dignity,” he stated . We apologize, but this video has didn't load. Because the mid-1970s, zoos around the globe have spent untold tens of millions of dollars on packages to maintain the panda on life support via captive breeding. Directed all that panda cash towards one thing else. Packham figured the planet would be better off if we merely pulled the plug. But it surely turns out you'll be able to agree with Packham without additionally dooming everyone’s favourite herbivorous bear. The panda is finally being saved, and it has almost nothing to do with the wasteful, largely pointless Chinese propaganda enterprise taking place at your native zoo. Despite many years of captive breeding, only nine captive bred pandas have ever been launched back into the wild. The primary, Xiang Xiang, was released in 2006 solely to be swiftly killed in a battle large panda teddy with resident males. Xue Xue, a feminine, dropped lifeless forty days after her 2014 release. Of these, solely four can but be known as successful. He Sheng, a male launched in early 2016, solely lasted the summer time before he was mauled to demise by an unknown animal. Meanwhile, the majority of the world’s 300-plus captive pandas will die with no glimpse of their mountainous dwelling. And the jury continues to be out on a pair of pandas launched into Liziping Nature Reserve late final month. “I suppose these packages have been happening lengthy sufficient that we must always see extra progress made,” Marc Bekoff, an ethologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, told National Geographic in 2013 . As will their kids. “It’s almost like: Breed. It is interesting to notice that the World Wildlife Fund, a bunch committed to the preservation of wildlife species that has used the panda in its brand for years, is not involved in panda captive breeding. In 2012, the government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper announced a 10-yr deal with the Chinese authorities that may carry two pandas to zoos in Calgary and Toronto. Pray that something works out. As with all of China’s panda deals, the agreement was cloaked within the veil of science. Every single captive panda world wide is owned by the People’s Republic of China, and nations don’t get one unless the Chinese Communist Party considers them a pal. “Humans want to guard pandas not for scientific reasons, or as a result of they are ecologically essential, however because they have cute faces and they are politically important,” Professor Wang Dajun, a wild-panda knowledgeable at Peking University, instructed the Financial Times final month. But China has very political causes to keep up its international community of black and white bears. And these bears aren’t low cost. Pandas hold the Guinness World Record for most costly zoo species, with the animals costing as much as 5 times more than elephants, the second-most expensive species. Much of this value is because of the exorbitant loan fees charged by China. In Canada’s case, it took $3 billion in commerce deals , as well as a private go to by Harper. This doesn’t imply that the hassle to save the panda is stalled. Removed from it, in reality. Unlike their listless captive counterparts, who famously refuse to mate regardless of mood music, viagra or even panda pornography, wild pandas are incredible breeders. The Chinese authorities banned logging in panda habitat in the nineteen nineties, and have since been demarcating giant panda reserves, as well as wildlife corridors to hyperlink them together. In 2016 the species was officially taken off the endangered list. No animal in historical past has sucked up extra conservation dollars than the giant panda. It seems all they really needed was to be left alone.