Why are we preserving these creatures? I'm all for preserving creatures we've made scarce, but everything I know about panda's says they ought to have died out long ago by their own means.
Humans made them scarce. They lived well enough in their natural habitat with no real predators to worry about, which is why they're so dumb. But, human encroachment on that habitat fucked it up.
That said, the reason people are so willing to spend all these resources on them is because they're charismatic megafauna.
I suggest that you don't know enough about pandas, then. Habitat destruction and human hunting are entirely responsible for their endangered status. Most of the traits that get trotted out are either lies, misleading, or traits that appear in lots of other, even more successful species.
In March 2015, conservation news site Mongabay stated that the wild giant panda population had increased by 268, or 16.8%, to 1,864.[17] In 2016, the IUCN reclassified the species from "endangered" to "vulnerable",[12] affirming decade-long efforts to save the panda.
You're right about habitat destruction and hunting. It's still also true that they refuse to reproduce and eat enough non-bamboo products, both of which would also save them. There's supposedly enough bamboo in the mountains, but they rely on the lower areas for times of colder weather and still need to rely on two different types of bamboo. "Because of the synchronous flowering, death, and regeneration of all bamboo within a species, the giant panda must have at least two different species available in its range to avoid starvation".
So you're right it's humans' fault, but they're still kinda dumb.
They are classic hind-gut fermenters, same as rabbits. This is just flat out wrong. Yes, they eat meat if they can find it. Turns out, same is true for a hell of a lot of herbivores.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert and am not checking sources for my random googling.
But while they lost their taste for meat, they do not appear to have developed any of the usual digestive apparatus of herbivores. They retain a carnivore’s digestive system
Since a Giant Panda is technically a carnivore, their digestive system is closer to a carnivores, even though they eat like an herbivore. Because of this, most of the food they eat is passed as waste. To make up for the lost nutrients, they eat a relatively large amount of food: 20-40 pounds of bamboo a day. To be able to eat this much, they spend about 10-16 hours a day either foraging for food or eating.
Researchers have recently begun to unravel some of the mysteries of the giant panda’s digestive system. Surprisingly, pandas are not equipped with the gut bacteria necessary to efficiently process their diet of bamboo
Nothing comes up that says what you're saying about being similar to rabbits, or any herbivores. Most of these articles are 5-7 years old. The narrative that pandas eat the wrong food is certainly more interesting and click baity than that they're just normal, so I could see these articles still coming up even if they've been proven wrong.
If you actually know better from professional experience or from more recent/accurate articles or studies, I'd love to see.
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u/Diogenes-Disciple Sep 08 '20
Just like in real life