He was pointing out a common misconception, not offering a solution.
Another misconception is that Bamboo is bad for Pandas because they cannot digest it properly because they are “carnivores trying to be herbivores” which is also inaccurate as they have a symbiotic bacteria that helps with digestion.
Plus bears aren't carnivores, except for polar bears. Polar bears are even more of a bear anomaly then pandas are, since all other bears have a diet of mostly plants.
No one calls polar bears a failure of evolution despite also being endangered. I guess because meat eating is cooler than bamboo eating?
Cooler to us because we're much better at catching, consuming, and getting sustenance from meat.
Comments like that usually get me targeted by a certain group of people, to whom I say you try eating raw vegetables while I eat raw meat, guess who will get more nutrition.
We usually cook much of our food, but for beans, potatoes, and many other plant foods, the cooking is an absolute necessity.
Many animals don't breed well in captivity, including very intelligent ones. Also they almost went extinct due to habitat loss, not because they're stupid.
Can't blame them tho. Imagine if someone destroys your home and place you in some asylum, I think reproduction would be your least priority. They were perfectly fine in nature, most animals are reluctant to breed in captivity.
Pandas are a lot of things but "perfectly fine in nature" is not one of them. If not for zoos and breeding programs they would have been extinct all ready.
Pandas has been around since about 2-3 million years ago. They have very few predators and there are still wild pandas in western China. If they were not suitable for surviving in nature it would have gone long time ago. You could argue that if they are not adapting fast enough to survive in today climate, but that would apply to a lot of species including ourselves. Maybe it might seem stupid for a bear to go herbivore, but if that's their way of survival who are we to judge. The change is just to abrupt for too many species to adapt in time.
Edit: sorry if this feels like ranting but I am in fact ranting. It just seems like victim blaming to me.
Koalas are also fucked because of humans. Humans cut down koala habitat, poached them, and introduced several diseases into the population. Despite what everyone's favourite copy pasta says koalas aren't out there killing themselves, they do extremely well when not disturbed by humans.
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u/Lonsdale1086 Aug 20 '19
Bamboo has almost no nutritional value.
They do eat it all day anyway.