In 2009, BBC presenter Chris Packham infamously said that the panda, the cuddly teddy bear-like symbol of the world conservation motion, must be left to die. “Let them go with a level of dignity,” he said . We apologize, however this video has did not load. Since the mid-1970s, zoos world wide have spent untold thousands and thousands of dollars on programs to maintain the panda on life assist by means of captive breeding. Directed all that panda money towards something else. Packham figured the planet could be better off if we merely pulled the plug. However it turns out you possibly can agree with Packham with out also dooming everyone’s favorite herbivorous bear. The panda is lastly being saved, and it has almost nothing to do with the wasteful, largely pointless Chinese propaganda enterprise happening at your local zoo. Despite decades of captive breeding, only nine captive bred pandas have ever been released again into the wild. The primary, Xiang Xiang, was launched in 2006 solely to be swiftly killed in a combat with resident males. Xue Xue, a female, dropped lifeless 40 days after her 2014 launch. Of those, solely four can but be referred to as a hit. He Sheng, a male released in early 2016, only lasted the summer time before he was mauled to demise by an unknown animal. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world’s 300-plus captive pandas will die and not using a glimpse of their mountainous house. And the jury continues to be out on a pair of pandas launched into Liziping Nature Reserve late last month. “I suppose these applications have been going on long sufficient that we should see extra progress made,” Marc Bekoff, an ethologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, told National Geographic in 2013 . As will their youngsters. “It’s virtually like: Breed. It is interesting to note that the World Wildlife Fund, a group committed to the preservation of wildlife species that has used the panda in its brand for years, just isn't involved in panda captive breeding. In 2012, the federal government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper introduced a 10-yr deal with the Chinese authorities that might convey two pandas to zoos in Calgary and Toronto. Pray that one thing works out. panda teddy bear online As with all of China’s panda deals, the agreement was cloaked in the veil of science. Every single captive panda around the globe is owned by the People’s Republic of China, and international locations don’t get one until the Chinese Communist Party considers them a buddy. “Humans want to protect pandas not for scientific reasons, or because they're ecologically essential, but as a result of they've cute faces and they're politically important,” Professor Wang Dajun, a wild-panda professional at Peking University, instructed the Financial Times last month. But China has very political reasons to maintain its international network 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 a lot as 5 times greater than elephants, the second-most costly species. Much of this price is due to the exorbitant loan charges charged by China. In Canada’s case, it took $3 billion in trade offers , in addition to a private go to by Harper. This doesn’t imply that the hassle to avoid wasting the panda is stalled. Far from it, in fact. Unlike their listless captive counterparts, who famously refuse to mate despite temper music, viagra or even panda pornography, wild pandas are incredible breeders. The Chinese authorities banned logging in panda habitat within the nineties, and have since been demarcating large panda reserves, as well as wildlife corridors to link them together. In 2016 the species was formally taken off the endangered listing. No animal in historical past has sucked up extra conservation dollars than the enormous panda. It turns out all they really needed was to be left alone.