Karohemd&#39;s World

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.

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blue-cat.livejournal.com

Actually in my first (or second?) year of Uni, in the Ecology & conservation class this was brought up by my lecturer ~ why bother. Also, if the statistics were correct 10 species had become exinct since breakfast (9am lecture) and could we name one. (no) also, with all the talk about mankind causing extinctions, could we name one of those without saying 'DoDo' (only 2 of us could: Stellar Sea Cow & Passenger Pigeon)

The panda is a dead end. However it is also a flagship animal. Cute fluffy/sexy animals get cash which preserves the habitat which means non-cute/sexy animals get to survive on that same patch of land.

Also, just because you may consider them a dead end that would have died out quite naturally some time back if they wern't so freaking fluffy and iconic doesn't mean you can't learn a lot about conservation by trying, learning and taking those lessons to other species. There isn't a clearer example of Animal+Habitat interlinking out there frankly.

So yeah. Panda are an expensive luxury item. But one that draws the crowds to pour their own money into 'saving animals' of which some can then go to saving animals with a real chance at a long term future.

From:

faerierhona.livejournal.com

Would the panda survive if humans had not damaged it's habitat/ taken it.

If yes, then we have a duty to protect it. Simple as.

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blue-cat.livejournal.com

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

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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."

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*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.

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Important question: What does it taste like?

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*nods* That's the main question and I guess the answer would be no.

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mr-malk.livejournal.com

I did hear a conservationist (who knows, maybe him) espouse this view on the radio a few months ago. His rather wonderful turn of phrase at the time was "I would cheerfully eat the last panda in existence if I could have all the money that has been spent on panda conservation, to spend on conserving other animals." I thought that sounded like a fair proposition, and not just because I'd be curious to find out what panda tastes like.

Of course, the comment about it being a flagship animal is correct, and as hypocritical as it is for people to donate to save the fluffy stuff while they couldn't give a toss about the arthropods (and so on), the money that the cute pandas bring in to the WWF is spread around all their programmes. Is it worthwhile in black and white terms (no pun intended, honest!)? I don't know. Maybe the WWF should trial a fund-raising campaign that uses a different logo and makes no reference to pandas, to see how successful it is.

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lolol I thought about writing that then decided against it.

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eryx-uk.livejournal.com

I have often thought that the panda is going nowhere. Nature seems to have selected it to die out and we're just postponing the inevitable. That just seems to be the way it is.

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faerierhona.livejournal.com

I don't know that that is true, and would have to check it. Humans ARE destroyign its habitat, so maybe it could survive if not for that, I am not an expert

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mr-malk.livejournal.com

Oo! Oo! I know one: Yangtze River Dolphin. That's probably been in the news lately, but I was curious about it since reading "Last Chance to See" back in 1994. Ah, those crazy Latvians!

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professoryaffle.livejournal.com

Given how specialised the pandas adaptations are I think the guess from people like Chris Packham is that even without humanity selection pressure would probably be against the panda, its difficult to truly know though

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I don't think a panda would taste very nice.

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Our other option is to force evolve the panda and feed the damn stupid animal steak, to show it what it's missing.

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feanelwa.livejournal.com

I think a better alternative is to put them all in our back garden, which is full of uncontrollably breeding bamboo.

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Probably not, just eating bamboo, mind you cows only eat grass and they taste great.

Panda recipes

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Packham says it tastes good in his article haha

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Steak or Bamboo? That's a no-brainer!

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Isn't part of the problem that they are really specialised and wouldn't even touch your garden bamboo? (a bit like koalas who will only eat leaves from their tree but not quite that extreme)

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Not to mention they eat metric fucktons of the stuff, so I'm thinking the garden would be knocked flat within hours.

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I think that's exactly what

feanelwa wants. ;o)

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Exactly!

get it a nice big roast with some gravy as well, show it some proper grub.

It could become a food critic "I used to only eat Bamboo, now I only eat at Michelin one star."

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