In 2009, BBC presenter Chris Packham infamously mentioned that the panda, the cuddly teddy bear-like image of the world conservation movement, should be left to die. “Let them go along with a degree of dignity,” he mentioned . We apologize, however this video has failed to load. Because the mid-1970s, zoos around the world have spent untold thousands and thousands of dollars on applications to keep the panda on life help by captive breeding. Directed all that panda cash in the direction of one thing else. Packham figured the planet can be better off if we merely pulled the plug. However it turns out you can agree with Packham with out additionally dooming everyone’s favorite herbivorous bear. The panda is finally being saved, and it has virtually nothing to do with the wasteful, largely pointless Chinese propaganda enterprise happening at your native zoo. Despite many years of captive breeding, only nine red panda teddy captive bred pandas have ever been launched again into the wild. The primary, Xiang Xiang, was launched in 2006 solely to be swiftly killed in a fight with resident males. Xue Xue, a feminine, dropped useless forty days after her 2014 release. Of those, solely four can yet be called a success. He Sheng, a male launched in early 2016, only lasted the summer time earlier than he was mauled to loss of life by an unknown animal. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world’s 300-plus captive pandas will die with out a glimpse of their mountainous residence. And the jury remains to be out on a pair of pandas launched into Liziping Nature Reserve late final month. “I assume these applications have been happening lengthy enough that we should see more progress made,” Marc Bekoff, an ethologist at University of Colorado, Boulder, advised National Geographic in 2013 . As will their kids. “It’s almost like: Breed. It's fascinating to note that the World Wildlife Fund, a bunch dedicated to the preservation of wildlife species that has used the panda in its logo for years, will not be concerned in panda captive breeding. In 2012, the government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper announced a 10-12 months deal with the Chinese authorities that might carry two pandas to zoos in Calgary and Toronto. Pray that one thing works out. As with all of China’s panda offers, the agreement was cloaked within the veil of science. Every single captive panda around the globe is owned by the People’s Republic of China, and nations don’t get one except the Chinese Communist Party considers them a friend. “Humans need to protect pandas not for scientific reasons, or because they are ecologically necessary, but as a result of they have cute faces and they're politically vital,” Professor Wang Dajun, a wild-panda expert at Peking University, informed the Financial Times last month. But China has very political reasons to keep up its international community of black and white bears. And these bears aren’t cheap. Pandas hold the Guinness World Record for most expensive zoo species, with the animals costing as much as five occasions greater than elephants, the second-most expensive species. Much of this value is due to the exorbitant mortgage fees charged by China. In Canada’s case, it took $three billion in commerce deals , in addition to a private visit by Harper. This doesn’t mean that the hassle to save lots of the panda is stalled. Far from it, in reality. Unlike their listless captive counterparts, who famously refuse to mate regardless of mood music, viagra and even panda pornography, wild pandas are unbelievable breeders. The Chinese authorities banned logging in panda habitat within the nineteen nineties, and have since been demarcating big panda reserves, in addition to wildlife corridors to hyperlink them collectively. In 2016 the species was formally taken off the endangered checklist. No animal in historical past has sucked up extra conservation dollars than the large panda. It seems all they actually wanted was to be left alone.