Pandas should die
Awww look at the cuddly panda. But I’m being serious here. Pandas suck. They suck at the easiest thing, the one thing that every other species currently existing on earth has managed: surviving. Believe it or not, someone conducted a panda census, and besides the fact that 30% registered themselves as Jedi, the census showed that there were less than 1,000 giant pandas in existence. I say: let them die.
140 of these giant pandas live here – at the Wolong Nature Preserve. It’s a 500,000 square acre piece of land in China’s Sichuan Province, and 10% of the world’s pandas are cared for under the watchful eye of Dr Zhang Hemin. Dr Hemin and his team spend their entire time trying to get the pandas to breed: it’s a multi million dollar operation, but to what end?
The Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), has issues in three vital areas of survival: eating, reproducing and caring for young.
Before you get all “man are destroying the panda’s habitat”, think again. Pandas are struggling to survive because they have a stupid diet: unlike every other animal on this planet, the Panda will eat only bamboo shoots and leaves. Naturally if you just eat one thing you’re gonna run out soon enough. On top of that, bamboo has the nutritional value of kitchen roll. If humans were dumb enough to eat only dish clothes we’d be on the verge on extinction. And you can bet there wouldn’t be any pandas running special breeding programmes for us.
Colby Loucks, a conservations scientist with the WWF, says there’s enough bamboo rich land for pandas, but it’s all broken up. "Imagine a broken cookie," he says. "Though there are several large protected chunks of land, there are also lots of small and isolated crumbs of habitat around the edges."
Loucks wants special conservation areas set up to join these fragmented pieces of land. Way too much effort for an animal that’s not going to meet its end of the bargain.
Believe it or not, Pandas are carnivores. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an animal so stupid, it doesn’t realise it can eat meat, and so the giant panda spends hours of its day chewing on bamboos, extracting a mere 20% of the nutrients from it. Why spend all this time creating special zones for pandas when they should just learn to vary their diet like the rest of us?
However, the hard part of Dr Zhang Hemin’s work isn’t feeding the pandas, its getting them to breed. And this is where the panda really shows how pathetic it is. OK, we all know survival ain’t easy – you gotta be tough to make it in this world, and every species on the planet has done so through adaptation to its environment, optimising its reproductive capacity.
Not so the giant panda. According to an article on National Geographic, male pandas “either show a serious lack of interest or are incompatible with the females and become aggressive.” Great job guys. Really playing for the team there. The females are just as bad, and ovulate for an incredibly lame 3 days in a year.
C’mon let’s face it people – these animals don’t want to survive.
Unfortunately and against all mathematical odds, some do make the effort and shag on the Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, or get artificially inseminated by those pesky scientists at the Wolong Nature Preserve.
But because of their piss poor diet, the offspring are massively malnutritioned at birth and come out looking like this – sorry, pink rags a mere 1/1000th of the size of their parents. Dr Zhang Hemin and his team have to survey the new mothers 24hours a day just to make sure they don’t roll over and squash their kids.
And get this – the parents are so lazy/stupid, the scientists are able to swap their offspring around if a mother rejects her child (yes, they do that too.) According to David Wildt, head of reproductive sciences at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, "The mother doesn't even wake up—it's amazing."
Unbelievable. These animals can’t be arsed to mate, and when they do, they either sit on or ignore their offspring! Why are we spending millions of dollars keeping these useless balls of fur alive when they can’t be bothered to do it themselves?
Of course, we have to weigh up the other worrying consequences of loosing pandas from this earth – what will CBBC Newsround report on once they've gone? What will Cadburys-Schweppes name their brand of shandys?
I’m not proclaiming a mass cull, but I don’t see why we’re helping them. Let them stumble pathetically along life’s actually-quite-easy track, and when they trip up, let them hit the dust. When we stop paying them attention, then they’ll grow up and start acting like a species.
26 Jan 2006 20:49
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Tags: Me Trying To Be Funny
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14 comments by 3 or more people
[Skip to the latest comment]In a quick update: Mr Phill Jupitus, who will be broadcasting from RaW's Studio1 tomorrow morning, loves pandas. They ran an office poll on the Phill Jupitus Breakfast Show, apparently revealing that "100% of people love pandas". They now have a Panda Desk here link
I shall endeavour to meet the man himself tomorrow and put forward my own panda views.
26 Jan 2006, 21:08
Nathan Barrow
Brilliant blog! Made me laugh, in a good way, it's very funny! "sorry, pink rags a mere 1/1000th of the size of their parents" … comedy gold!
I don't know whether I agree though, there must be something valuable we can get out of them… but if there was a culling, I wouldn't stop it =)
26 Jan 2006, 22:01
Emily Andrews
ooooohhhh, you horrible, awfu,l evil bastard.
etc,etc,
That the kind of comment you're after, Mr Westbrook?
Always happy to oblidge….
27 Jan 2006, 21:03
Jimmy Buckland
Belatedly… I'm a big fan.
29 Jan 2006, 15:40
i love pandas!! sooooo cute. and im sure its the fault of humans somehow which is why they are dying. can i have a pet panda? that would be soooo awesome.
31 Jan 2006, 17:26
Christopher Doidge
In today's New York Times:
Proof, if proof were needed: pandas suck.
11 Feb 2006, 22:43
Decoy
I wrote an article about this one time… you can find it (WARNING: Vulgar language is used quite prolifically) at: link
15 Mar 2006, 22:30
Trollop
I agree entirely: Pandas Suck. It’s only Chinese politics (it’s the Chinese national animal) that keeps them alive. No wonder Pandas are so senselessly cruel to their children.
10 Feb 2007, 17:18
jord
hahaha yes i used dis 4 homework lol
28 Feb 2007, 16:57
Jimmy
Adam, your comments on the pandas ‘suck’ as you would say. People like you who think they are so clever and care so little for the innocent creatures in this world really get on my nerves. I know this will not break your heart, and I am probably wasting my time, but fidn something else to do rather than have a go at animals that have been made to suffer at the hands of mankind and are now the objects of peoples’s egos and their greed. The true conservationists have to work for them knowing that some people are in it to make a fast buck. If you are ever threatened with extinction, please rest assured that I for one will not bore you by trying to save you. I think the females of the speices would rather die out than have to mate with you.
Enjoy sneering and making more silly comments, I hope it gives you pleasure.
23 Apr 2007, 16:54
Jimmy
Blast!
A typing error! More ammo for one of your unfunny jokes no doubt. Or one of your fan club’s members.
Oh, well.
23 Apr 2007, 16:56
Janet
Adam, you should study a subject carefully before talking about it, especially in such an unpleasant manner.
The female pandas at Wolong are not so stupid that they don not know one baby from another. The Chinese take these babies from their mothers at 4-6 months in order to get the female to breed again, long before she is ready. Conservation is given as the reason, many of us believe that althought this plays a part, the revenue that these pandas can generate is a big factor in this factory farming of these animals. That is my own expression,from my own personal opinion. The facts are, however, that the female does indeed know her cubs, and if youwatch some videos you will see the anxiety and relief when the cub is handed to its mother. One female tried to stop this intervention as eventually the cubs are removed for good, and she did not want to lose another cub. She tried to nurse her cub and stay awake, growling at those who tried to approach and take the cub. A tragedy occurred when she finally fell asleep, and that is how she crushed oher own cub, through stress and exhaustion, not stupidity.How you can attack these bears when humans exhibit stupid behaviour and do not look after their offspring even with all the help that is available is beyond me. Is there not enough evil in this world, enough idiotic, crafty and downright dangerous behaviour from our politicians (Bush and Blair are only two of them) without you seeking to upset and anger people by picking on these animals who are already victims of human greed?
As for their diet, it is not as silly as you think. I suggest you read all about these bears before you make any more statements.When human parents no longer shake, beat or smother their own babies, when they actually take care of their children properly without having anti-social brats, then maybe you can comment on other speices.
If aliens are able to tune in to us, they must think we are a pretty nutty race. Your nuts, and I am afraid I must be to take the tiem to answer you. I only hope Phil Jupitus has put you in your place by now.
26 Apr 2007, 18:39
Janet
Like Jimmy, I am afraid I have made typing errors that I did not notice when I posted. I am sorry for anyone trying to read my comments, I can only plead lack of time as I am not on my own pc but on a public one with time restrictions. Maybe it is a reaction to Mr. Westbrook.
26 Apr 2007, 18:43
Christian
I wholeheartedly agree. A species so desperate to die should be left alone. Let them become extinct in peace. And with all the money we’re saving on those stupid bastards, why don’t we fund other programmes to save animals (say the tiger) who DO want to survive and procreate!
27 Jul 2007, 12:28
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