"It is time to let the Panda go"

[karohemd]

Interesting viewpoint and I think quite valid as "survival of the fittest" applies here and the panda is, quite frankly, too stupidill adapted to survive. It would be entirely different if all it took was to conserve or expand his habitat.

I'd be interested to hear what my naturalist/conservationist friends think about this.

(thanks to raggedy_man for the link)

Comments

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing at the uproar this has caused.

The way I see it, he was saying that people love to save/pay attention to the big, fluffy animals but ignore the potentially more important smaller endangered species such as plants and insects which could be beneficial to mankind.

Yes it would be sad if there were no more wild pandas, but does anybody give a shit about small bat species and beetles? Nope. Hypocrites.

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

I agree with virtually everything you say but still wince at the need for animals to be beneficial to mankind.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Oh I didn't mean to imply they had to be in order to be saved. I just get mad at the people going all goo goo over the cutesy fluffy animals yet there is probably a plant or something out there that can cure cancer and it's likely they wouldn't give a damn because that plant/animal would be "ugly."

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's how I understood it, too.

Yeah. I might not be a good example for this but while I love, for example, penguins, I'm equally fascinated by animals/organisms that have adapted to living in, for example, extremely caustic, boiling water.