Chengdu…The Pandas!

It is possible that in the giant panda, the world has found a species too stupid to maintain its own place in the world but entirely too cute to let eat its way into extinction. 

And I can remember reading an article with my students by Chris Packham, a BBC nature show conservationist who argued that pandas should be let to die.  My girls were up in arms—How could we? Why would we? That’s just cruel!   

But then you’re presented with compelling evidence: pandas survive on low calorie bamboo, the equivalent of a human chewing on celery, only celery, for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of its life.  In order to get enough nutrition, a panda must eat for 10 hours a day.  And even then, it’s so exhausted from eating, it must sleep afterward. 

Or this: on average, pandas get their Marvin Gaye on for maximum of three days a year—their fertility and sexual desires peak at a ‘meh, I can’t be bothered to run away from this other bear kind of looking at me’ just once a year; and even then, a panda pregnancy is so volatile that doctors cannot measure whether Ting Ting or Tian Tian is pregnant until it actually gives birth.  In fact, a recent CNN headline reads: ‘Panda May Have Faked Pregnancy for more Buns, Bamboo.’  Not that I blame the girl, I’d probably do the same for some good Chinese buns.  And I suppose it shows a certain kind of ingenuity, but still.  

I’ll end on this fact.  Let’s say a panda eats enough bamboo and does have enough energy to get in the mood and the pregnancy sticks, as such.  Well…panda cubs are born so tiny that, often, the mother accidentally smothers her young by sitting on the barely larger than pupae sized cub. 

Folks, I think pandas win the Darwin Awards of the animal kingdom. 

And still, they’re so stinking cute we tourists (and nearly half the population of Chengdu) pay 100RMB (£10/$15) to flock to the Chengdu Panda Research and Breeding Sanctuary.  Willingly.  Freely.  And commence to snap at least 200 pictures throughout the palatial zoo/park in a short period of time. 

Panda babies, panda kindergarten, panda adults in various states of nap, red pandas.  Followed by panda paraphernalia.  The panda is China’s big business.  And I loved every single second of my experience there.

And I’ll do it again.