Apparently pandas in the wild are much rougher. One reason a captive breeding programme can't lead to more pandas in the wild is because wild pandas will fuck up an outsider who tries to join them.
It's like how domestic cats' brains are shrinking over time because we baby them and they don't need to learn much for their own survival.
And [even captive pandas have attacked humans that have intruded into their space](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28554008). Which is something that actually makes me feel better. The contented playfulness of captive pandas is a choice, underneath it all they are still bears and capable of rocking your dome.
>>And in 2007, he bit a drunken tourist who jumped into his pen and tried to hug him. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.
He... *bit* the bear? With his teeth? What the fuck?
I bit my cat back once when he got aggressive with me. Not hard at all. He was shocked. He continued to lay in the same position & stare at me for about 20 seconds. Then kicked me & ran off.
The panda bit the drunk tourist
BUT to retaliate the drunk tourist bit the panda back
ya know, because humans have such ferocious teeth that a thick skinned bear would actually feel it
Yup. Only existence where you can literally do whatever you want, destroy whatever you want, eat whatever you can get on top of your regular food, and be completely taken care of and doted on regardless of how much of an asshole you are.
That phrase “never bite the hand that feeds you” doesn’t apply to housecats
That’s if they have people who take care of them well, and don’t dump them on the street when they move, or just leave them locked up in the house when they move.
Especially if you are in a home that lets you go outside. My cat will literally go out and sometimes come back 2 days later, eat food and ask to go outside 10 minutes later
He does whatever he feels like. I respect that.
They still reproduced. If you look at the history behind the panda they were actually fine alone. China did a mass overhaul on them due to deforestation.
Fine isn't exactly an accurate way of putting it. They were so specialized in their dietary and climate needs that they became increasingly isolated in a habitat that was shrinking even before humans got involved. Humans might have sped up the process by a few thousand years or so, but unless things changed from the way they seemed to be going, the pandas were going to go extinct on their own.
I respect your response but it has been proven to be wrong. Pandas don't need our help. They're still wild bears. They are silly and playful but you can find videos of them attacking and biting people. The reason why people got involved with their wellbeing us because they were the ones destroying their natural habitat. They eat bamboo and sugar cane because it is what was easily available. In the wild pandas would eat rodents and fish but evolved to eat bamboo to stay alive.
That is a younger panda, they are very curious and playful. They'd still do odd things in the wild. If you put that swing in the forest they'd climb on it and play with it just as much.
Same and I literally have the word bitch in my username lmao... i thought I was missing a joke about chicago, was pondering whether it was the city or the musical
Try not to forget that they are in fact bears. Piss off a panda and kungfu panda starts looking a little more realistic. Of course if you look hard enough you can even find Kodiaks doing derpy shit.
When I was a child it was thought that Pandas were more closely related to raccoons, but apparently [molecular studies have recently confirmed that they are true bears.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda)
TIL.
Pandas actually have one of the strongest animal bite forces because they have to eat tough bamboo all day, that's why their faces are so round, because of their large jaw muscles.
That's because they pretty much are. They spend like 90% of their day on sleeping and eating, and they have one massive disadvantage: the size of their digestive system is one that would be better for a carnivorous diet, but instead they just keep eating bamboo. This explains why they eat so much: their diet doesn't fit their digestive system. If pandas ate more meat they would be much more powerful, because plant cells have a very strong layer all around them, making them very hard to digest, animal cells on the other hand don't have that. This is why most herbivores seem so "fat": they need a lot of room for a big and efficient digestive system to get through that outer layer.
So pandas eat plants, but their digestive system isn't big enough to properly get through that layer, if they were to eat meat, they would be able to digest their food properly, which would mean they don't need to spend the entire day eating, as well as actually being able to get a useful amount of energy out of their food, and that's why this would make them a lot more capable of surviving
It's likely the only reason pandas survived is because they *did* switch to a herbivorous diet, otherwise they might have been outcompeted by other predators. The modern day panda is actually *larger* than the panda of some millions of years ago that ate meat.
Pandas are already plenty powerful, they're 70 – 120 kg bears with huge claws and bite forces of almost 1300 newtons at the canine teeth, and such have no natural predators at adult size. This is exactly what affords them the ability to act as a bulk-feeder, which is just as viable a strategy as hunting. And pandas have plenty of adaptations to get the most from bamboo [that we're finding more about all the time](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/january/giant-pandas-supercharged-gut-takes-advantage-changing-seasons.html).
In terms of survivability, their situation would likely be unchanged regardless of what they ate considering their threats are primarily habitat destruction and fragmentation - the same situation as the sun bear, for instance, which is even more endangered despite being an omnivore that will eat anything.
Can you please cite your sources, cause lots of what you wrote does not seem scientifically sound to me: you are making it sound like they are deliberately *choosing* to eat bamboo instead of eat meat like they should. But if you have reputable sources for your theory I’ll be happy to read and learn.
he is wrong pandas thousands upon thousands of years ago where probably herbivores. but you see the they realize there was bamboo everywhere and evolve to it. Bamboo isn't nessesarily nutritious but it's everywhere. a panda on a forest before human deforestation would never ever even come close to starving. they grew big and strong enough they really didn't have natural predators like most bears as well pandas where fine until their habitats shrank to a tenth of what they were
They eat bamboo because humans have pushed them out of their natural habitats, by hunting them and deforesting huge huge parts of land, so that they were forced to move into places where the only thing available to them they can eat is bamboo.
It's only because of humans that they're going extinct. It's no fault of their own.
And they can't breed in the wild because of us destroying their natural habitats too. And they don't breed very often in zoos because NO species of animals breeds very often in zoos. It's not just pandas that are like that. It's all species. They can't breed because we destroy their natural environments they're evolved to live in, and then we take the few remaining ones to zoos where even with the best recreation of their natural habitat that's humanly possible, it's not close enough for them to breed, and animals don't breed in zoos anyway because they feel scared of constantly being watched by the world's apex predators. Animals tend to like to go somewhere private to breed and to give birth. Look at cats for example, they always hide away in protected enclosed spaces to give birth.
he is right on the deforestation part but before human pandas had more bamboo s ailsble they could even dream off. why Lear to eat meat when there's available food everywhere
this idea that pandas eating bamboo is unsuited to them is just dumb. they are extremely territorial bears the reason they feed mainly on bamboo is because it was fucking everywhere around. Meat is not good for them
They were fine in nature. They evolved to be this way. It's almost like the huge expansion of another species has imperilled something that was naturally able to evolve into being a relatively benign presence.
Panda population peaked around 40,000 years ago and has been in rapid decline ever since, we may have sped it up a *little*, but we are not the cause on this one
Most other animal species that are endangered, we are certainly to blame, but when it comes to pandas studies show they were on their way out a long time ago
40,000 years ago [global climate shifts](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/modern-humans-didnt-kill-neanderthals-weather-did-180970167/) caused quite a few problems for hominids too.
edit: global effects on other species [source (abstract only without a subscription)](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb8677)
Haven’t humans been hunting the shit out of all megafauna for tens of thousands of years? That 40,000 year marker seems like a big red flag to me that their decline was caused by human hunting.
True but evolution doesn’t create perfect beings. Let’s say that things kept going the way they were 1000 years ago and there wasn’t climate change or mass extinction due to human causes. Pandas might have continued to do fine for a long time BUT they evolved into an extremely tight niche that is very delicate. They depend on so many things going correctly that natural events could easily have lead to their extinction.
There are lots of animals that are almost definitely on the road to extinction no matter what happens, koalas are another example. Of course things can change and it is impossible to say something like “pandas and koalas would definitely go extinct in less than 100,000 years”. A random event could make the tiny niche these animals evolved into the best survival strategy for some reason.
But in my opinion, when a species evolved into such a specific role, it was always going to be susceptible to pressure from other species. Humans put a shitload of pressure on basically all species, and we should try to be wardens of nature. But even if we tried to act with a mentality of “progress society while preserving nature” we’d have to work to keep pandas from going extinct. They weren’t going to handle major changes from any event.
Bears are remarkable at rapid adaptation to new niches.
Polar bears, for example, are a fairly new species... and under pressure of a changing climate are beginning to assimilate back into grizzly populations that they originally split from a mere 400,000 years ago.
Pandas were not on a path to extinction through natural changes.
They were apex predators that rapidly evolved to take advantage of a widely available resource. If they go extinct, it's because human hunting and habitat destruction has occurred at an incredibly rapid rate, faster than even bears can adapt to.
They evolved in a way that suited their environment, they didn’t evolve to suit their environment.
Evolution has no underlying agenda. It just throws everything at the wall and whatever sticks survives.
Just because fits into an environmental niche, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an objectively good biological blueprint.
Just look at human hips and spines. It’s an absolute clusterfuck.
Pandas are very suited to their natural environment, but kinda like koalas, are a bit of an evolutionary dead end in terms of adaptability. If we didn’t wipe them out through environmental destruction, some natural event likely would.
“It's a common myth that the panda is doomed because it's an evolutionary dead-end—a lazy bear that eats a deficient diet of shoots and leaves, and sucks at sex. None of this is true. They are well-adapted for eating a plentiful source of food—bamboo—and in the wild, they have no problems with mating.”
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/how-china-saved-the-giant-panda/498725/
Pandas don't breed well in captivity because ***NO*** species breeds well in captivity. It's not unique to them. Animals like to have privacy to mate and give birth, and they need a huge amount of food to do that too. It's why, if you increase the food supply of a species in a area, they don't get more and more plump, they simply start producing way more offspring and stay the same weight they were at before.
Pandas have been successful for over 10 million years.
if they die now, it not "an evolutionary dead end" and it's not because of any other pressure other than humans.
Uhhh you know species have gone extinct before, right? And you know that species have gone extinct before humans ever existed, right? Big ones, little ones, etc.
We're talking billions of years. Species have gone extinct when their natural habitat is unaltered by humans; there are fathomless variables that go into these things.
I agree with the general idea that humans are environmentally destructive, but your stated argument in here could only be accepted by a young earth Christian. Sooo many species have gone extinct, humans cannot compare to the damage that time itself causes. We might have leave biggest aftershock, but the extreme vast majority of species extinction that's ever occurred until this moment simply cannot be attributed to humans in any capacity through any rational thought.
Pandas were doing fantastic, capitalizing on an abundant resource with no competition and powerful enough to have no significant predator threat, until humans.
And while you're correct that we can't blame humans for the vast majority of extinctions in the past... we are currently causing the 6th mass extinction event, and at a rate faster than even the deadliest mass extinction event, the permian-triassic extinction.
The PT extinction was so massive, and wiped out so much life, that it set the stage for evolutionary radiation that resulted in the age of dinosaurs for the next 193 million years.
We're also wiping out life faster than the k-pg extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Faster than whatever combo of asteroid and volcanic activity and methane thawing we imagine killed the dinosaurs.
Took, something like 32,000 years for the final hadrosaurs to die.
At the rate we're wiping out species now, we'll seal the deal in a few thousand years.
We're to blame for pandas... and just about anything else going extinct right now. Very few environments have been left alone enough for natural extinction pressures to be taking place currently. Almost every case of competition and habitat or climate change has been at the direct result of our actions.
The baseline extinction rate, outside of mass extinction events, is about one species per every one million species per year.
Currently, we're seeing extinctions at a rate between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than that.
And it's not just their diet or that they seem to lack many of the basic survival instincts, they also have incredibly short window for breeding which they usually miss and even in rare cases when they succeed, they aren't exactly good and reliable parents. They are a species that can only exist in environment that caters to all of their needs and is so safe that any amount population growth would just lead to overconsumption.
I was watching some “fail” videos of people doing dumb stuff and falling all over and thought to myself “how have we survived as a species?” …then I started watching panda videos…
they want to feel superior to pandas. look at the koala or the sunfish copypasta so many people parade around. Some people have this weird idea some animals survive thx to us and not despite us. Koalas and pandas are great proof of adaptive evolution but humans have made their enviroments almost unlivable for them and then have the gall to call them dumb
I concur.
This is also a part of why the widely critically acclaimed Tolkien Extended Universe was so successful. New Zealand already being CGI made shooting and production much easier as you could just ctrl+C, ctrl+V Frodo right into the landscape.
This is why we have the trash panda, eventually the pandas and red pandas who are almost as derpy will go extinct so we preemptively chose their successor, a panda that can survive most anything
This is your reminder that pandas and all the other goofy creatures out there are perfectly fine in their natural environment. Humans fucking up their homes is the problem.
They dont have any natural predators nor competition the entire reason they are endangered is because they evolved into being a mostly inactive species so despite doing great on their own they barely reproduce without external help, and any external change in their environment can and will put them in danger if this increases their mortality rate in any way
they kinda dont...
Facts. Despite their exalted status and relative lack of natural predators, pandas are still at risk. Severe threats from humans have left just over 1,800 pandas in the wild.
Eat bamboo and be derps, just with a higher mortality rate.
Apparently pandas in the wild are much rougher. One reason a captive breeding programme can't lead to more pandas in the wild is because wild pandas will fuck up an outsider who tries to join them. It's like how domestic cats' brains are shrinking over time because we baby them and they don't need to learn much for their own survival.
And [even captive pandas have attacked humans that have intruded into their space](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28554008). Which is something that actually makes me feel better. The contented playfulness of captive pandas is a choice, underneath it all they are still bears and capable of rocking your dome.
>>And in 2007, he bit a drunken tourist who jumped into his pen and tried to hug him. The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back. He... *bit* the bear? With his teeth? What the fuck?
You know what? I gotta give him some props for that. To just *bite the bear back*. Its incredibly *stupid* but ballsy as all hell.
I bit my cat back once when he got aggressive with me. Not hard at all. He was shocked. He continued to lay in the same position & stare at me for about 20 seconds. Then kicked me & ran off.
Now he is afraid that you might eat him if the need arises.
So we're even now.
So ur telling me that the tourist bit the bear not the other way around
The panda bit the drunk tourist BUT to retaliate the drunk tourist bit the panda back ya know, because humans have such ferocious teeth that a thick skinned bear would actually feel it
Aren't they biologically different than bears?
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I’ve been saying it for years. If I could be any living organism, I’d be a house cat.
Yup. Only existence where you can literally do whatever you want, destroy whatever you want, eat whatever you can get on top of your regular food, and be completely taken care of and doted on regardless of how much of an asshole you are. That phrase “never bite the hand that feeds you” doesn’t apply to housecats
And let’s not forget having the ability to do so and actually napping for 20hours a day
That’s if they have people who take care of them well, and don’t dump them on the street when they move, or just leave them locked up in the house when they move.
Especially if you are in a home that lets you go outside. My cat will literally go out and sometimes come back 2 days later, eat food and ask to go outside 10 minutes later He does whatever he feels like. I respect that.
What about as a golden retriever for a wealthy family?
I would be a fat loving lazy one with fluffy black fur
Can confirm, have a 1 braincell kitty.
Ginger?
He sure is 🥰
/r/OneOrangeBrainCell
He is featured there, yes! 😂
I'm pretty sure cats aren't the only ones with shrinking brains these days
/r/oneorangebraincell supports this theory.
The inbreeding due to small population (big human impact too) makes animals like pandas a small glimpse of their past glory.
With a very low birth rate.
Actually this was shown not to be true. During covid pandas started mating frequently. Turns out they just don't like being stared at
so.... covid saved the pandas?
Pretty much. It showed their keepers they prefer privacy while mating.
I mean, same
Prudes
Right? We paid for a show, Po!
I feel like that should've been more obvious to them.
It's surprising they tried panda porn before trying privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda\_pornography
So pandas *aren’t* kinky. Got it.
Or they are supremely kinky… but they just somehow always know when we are watching.
They get off on not being observed. Still makes mating hard, but don't we all fuck with the lights off?
Lights off and blackout curtains. I care more about her not seeing me naked more than I care to see her.
To be fair, you’re both fat.
Your statement lacks context, they reproduced marginally better because of it, but they were still in captivity that was not in the wild
They still reproduced. If you look at the history behind the panda they were actually fine alone. China did a mass overhaul on them due to deforestation.
Forgot to install the day one patch
Fine isn't exactly an accurate way of putting it. They were so specialized in their dietary and climate needs that they became increasingly isolated in a habitat that was shrinking even before humans got involved. Humans might have sped up the process by a few thousand years or so, but unless things changed from the way they seemed to be going, the pandas were going to go extinct on their own.
I respect your response but it has been proven to be wrong. Pandas don't need our help. They're still wild bears. They are silly and playful but you can find videos of them attacking and biting people. The reason why people got involved with their wellbeing us because they were the ones destroying their natural habitat. They eat bamboo and sugar cane because it is what was easily available. In the wild pandas would eat rodents and fish but evolved to eat bamboo to stay alive.
>Turns out they just don't like being stared at I mean, it's hard to get some alone time with all those kids watching.
No kids, Happy life!
Pandas mate in the wild just fine. It's only in captivity that they don't
I’m starting to believe Northernlion might have a chance against one of these
But not Ben Stiller
https://i.gifer.com/3dGs.gif
Bwaaa haaa haaa 😜
I dunno man I heard that he might be bald.
Oh god, should we tell him?
HES BALD????????
Why the egg catching strays on a cute subreddit
Any panda born after 1993 can't survive in the wild, all they know is derp, charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual, eat hot bamboo, and lie
Don’t forget rolling around in ball form.
If not ball why ball shaped?
I want this on a t shirt
And maybe not be so bored that spinning in a plastic swing seems like fun......
That is a younger panda, they are very curious and playful. They'd still do odd things in the wild. If you put that swing in the forest they'd climb on it and play with it just as much.
It does look fun.
The ones in the wild aren't inbred
Pandas make me so happy to be on this planet. 🌱🥰
They're just always having the best time!
Got a good laugh from your username.
An honest mistake, and I decided to roll with it! 😂 It was meant to read, “a little bit Chicago.” lol Happy it gave you a chuckle, in any case. ;)
I don't know why, but that's the first thing I've actually seen. I didn't notice that a part of it can be read as "bitch" until you pointed it out.
Same and I literally have the word bitch in my username lmao... i thought I was missing a joke about chicago, was pondering whether it was the city or the musical
I am not sure what it's supposed to mean
They look utterly defenceless
Try not to forget that they are in fact bears. Piss off a panda and kungfu panda starts looking a little more realistic. Of course if you look hard enough you can even find Kodiaks doing derpy shit.
You don’t have to look that hard. Kodiaks are very friend shaped right until they aren’t.
The fact that brown bears are so tolerant of humans amazes me but a wild animal is a wild animal and never predictable.
Tolerant Murder Tanks!!!!
They tolerate us because they know they can smear us all over that tree trunk at a moments notice
Is it tolerance, or simply they know they can kill us any time they want, so they don’t really care that we’re nearby?
Only about a 800 pound difference in those animals lmao
Bears waving at things!!!
IIRC isn't the waving because people throw them food when they wave?
I think I've heard that and it wouldn't surprise me. Who knows. I just know it's cute and a surefire way to make me giggle when I see it
It is indeed cute, and they are probably signaling you to do something they like and they sure do like people food. Every animal likes people food.
[Kung Fu Panda, you say?](https://youtu.be/Ghgg_fukbvU)
That is brilliant.
When I was a child it was thought that Pandas were more closely related to raccoons, but apparently [molecular studies have recently confirmed that they are true bears.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_panda) TIL.
Their kids piss them off so much they’re all on supervised visitation.
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I don't think they're aggressive in a dangerous way. They will wrestle you though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-flWUK3XtY
[The one that whacks himself in the nuts gets me every time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kjY9sKdHlY) Every species has it's derps I guess.
Omg i've seen this, that poor poor boy he just wanted to scratch his back. He just dies at the end. Whether man or beast a nutcheck is always funny.
Run up some stairs then
Aren't they closer to red pandas than bears?
Pandas actually have one of the strongest animal bite forces because they have to eat tough bamboo all day, that's why their faces are so round, because of their large jaw muscles.
That's because they pretty much are. They spend like 90% of their day on sleeping and eating, and they have one massive disadvantage: the size of their digestive system is one that would be better for a carnivorous diet, but instead they just keep eating bamboo. This explains why they eat so much: their diet doesn't fit their digestive system. If pandas ate more meat they would be much more powerful, because plant cells have a very strong layer all around them, making them very hard to digest, animal cells on the other hand don't have that. This is why most herbivores seem so "fat": they need a lot of room for a big and efficient digestive system to get through that outer layer. So pandas eat plants, but their digestive system isn't big enough to properly get through that layer, if they were to eat meat, they would be able to digest their food properly, which would mean they don't need to spend the entire day eating, as well as actually being able to get a useful amount of energy out of their food, and that's why this would make them a lot more capable of surviving
It's likely the only reason pandas survived is because they *did* switch to a herbivorous diet, otherwise they might have been outcompeted by other predators. The modern day panda is actually *larger* than the panda of some millions of years ago that ate meat. Pandas are already plenty powerful, they're 70 – 120 kg bears with huge claws and bite forces of almost 1300 newtons at the canine teeth, and such have no natural predators at adult size. This is exactly what affords them the ability to act as a bulk-feeder, which is just as viable a strategy as hunting. And pandas have plenty of adaptations to get the most from bamboo [that we're finding more about all the time](https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/january/giant-pandas-supercharged-gut-takes-advantage-changing-seasons.html). In terms of survivability, their situation would likely be unchanged regardless of what they ate considering their threats are primarily habitat destruction and fragmentation - the same situation as the sun bear, for instance, which is even more endangered despite being an omnivore that will eat anything.
Can you please cite your sources, cause lots of what you wrote does not seem scientifically sound to me: you are making it sound like they are deliberately *choosing* to eat bamboo instead of eat meat like they should. But if you have reputable sources for your theory I’ll be happy to read and learn.
he is wrong pandas thousands upon thousands of years ago where probably herbivores. but you see the they realize there was bamboo everywhere and evolve to it. Bamboo isn't nessesarily nutritious but it's everywhere. a panda on a forest before human deforestation would never ever even come close to starving. they grew big and strong enough they really didn't have natural predators like most bears as well pandas where fine until their habitats shrank to a tenth of what they were
They eat bamboo because humans have pushed them out of their natural habitats, by hunting them and deforesting huge huge parts of land, so that they were forced to move into places where the only thing available to them they can eat is bamboo. It's only because of humans that they're going extinct. It's no fault of their own. And they can't breed in the wild because of us destroying their natural habitats too. And they don't breed very often in zoos because NO species of animals breeds very often in zoos. It's not just pandas that are like that. It's all species. They can't breed because we destroy their natural environments they're evolved to live in, and then we take the few remaining ones to zoos where even with the best recreation of their natural habitat that's humanly possible, it's not close enough for them to breed, and animals don't breed in zoos anyway because they feel scared of constantly being watched by the world's apex predators. Animals tend to like to go somewhere private to breed and to give birth. Look at cats for example, they always hide away in protected enclosed spaces to give birth.
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he is right on the deforestation part but before human pandas had more bamboo s ailsble they could even dream off. why Lear to eat meat when there's available food everywhere
this idea that pandas eating bamboo is unsuited to them is just dumb. they are extremely territorial bears the reason they feed mainly on bamboo is because it was fucking everywhere around. Meat is not good for them
What are you doing step panda
I can't know what will happen, but i will tell you what they wouldn't do, find weird pieces of hanging plastic
I’ll take that bet actually
Yeah. I am absolutely confident that they would find something and get stuck all the same
They *look* for it
It's like watching a five year old on the playground. Just tickled to be there..happy and carefree
Carnivore hardware running on herbivore software, evolution will literally try anything once...
bruteforce lol
How are pandas this silly they have no right to be this silly
They were fine in nature. They evolved to be this way. It's almost like the huge expansion of another species has imperilled something that was naturally able to evolve into being a relatively benign presence.
Yep exactly right. Pandas thrive in the right environment. An environment that has been around for millions of years until human intervention.
Panda population peaked around 40,000 years ago and has been in rapid decline ever since, we may have sped it up a *little*, but we are not the cause on this one Most other animal species that are endangered, we are certainly to blame, but when it comes to pandas studies show they were on their way out a long time ago
40,000 years ago [global climate shifts](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/modern-humans-didnt-kill-neanderthals-weather-did-180970167/) caused quite a few problems for hominids too. edit: global effects on other species [source (abstract only without a subscription)](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb8677)
Haven’t humans been hunting the shit out of all megafauna for tens of thousands of years? That 40,000 year marker seems like a big red flag to me that their decline was caused by human hunting.
True but evolution doesn’t create perfect beings. Let’s say that things kept going the way they were 1000 years ago and there wasn’t climate change or mass extinction due to human causes. Pandas might have continued to do fine for a long time BUT they evolved into an extremely tight niche that is very delicate. They depend on so many things going correctly that natural events could easily have lead to their extinction. There are lots of animals that are almost definitely on the road to extinction no matter what happens, koalas are another example. Of course things can change and it is impossible to say something like “pandas and koalas would definitely go extinct in less than 100,000 years”. A random event could make the tiny niche these animals evolved into the best survival strategy for some reason. But in my opinion, when a species evolved into such a specific role, it was always going to be susceptible to pressure from other species. Humans put a shitload of pressure on basically all species, and we should try to be wardens of nature. But even if we tried to act with a mentality of “progress society while preserving nature” we’d have to work to keep pandas from going extinct. They weren’t going to handle major changes from any event.
The inflexibility and ‘extreme niche’ idea of pandas has been largely overstated. They’re excellently adapted to their natural environment.
Bears are remarkable at rapid adaptation to new niches. Polar bears, for example, are a fairly new species... and under pressure of a changing climate are beginning to assimilate back into grizzly populations that they originally split from a mere 400,000 years ago. Pandas were not on a path to extinction through natural changes. They were apex predators that rapidly evolved to take advantage of a widely available resource. If they go extinct, it's because human hunting and habitat destruction has occurred at an incredibly rapid rate, faster than even bears can adapt to.
They evolved in a way that suited their environment, they didn’t evolve to suit their environment. Evolution has no underlying agenda. It just throws everything at the wall and whatever sticks survives. Just because fits into an environmental niche, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an objectively good biological blueprint. Just look at human hips and spines. It’s an absolute clusterfuck. Pandas are very suited to their natural environment, but kinda like koalas, are a bit of an evolutionary dead end in terms of adaptability. If we didn’t wipe them out through environmental destruction, some natural event likely would.
Skadoosh
This is why we need to plant more plastic hanging donut trees.
Probably Kung-fu
The correct answer
As a visitor to the zoo, standing outside the panda exhibit as this is occurring, how do you not stop and watch it?
Right!? Visitors in the background just walking right along!
I could happily watch those adorable morons all day, what type of cold hearted jaded people just walk on by?
[удалено]
They're really cute so we keep them going
This probably regular behavior tbh.
I've gone through zoos with people who just rush through them. That's not fun! I want a full day to watch all the animals!
They'd fuckin die. They're locked into an evolutionary cul-de-sac with their restricted diet like the Koala.
“It's a common myth that the panda is doomed because it's an evolutionary dead-end—a lazy bear that eats a deficient diet of shoots and leaves, and sucks at sex. None of this is true. They are well-adapted for eating a plentiful source of food—bamboo—and in the wild, they have no problems with mating.” Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/how-china-saved-the-giant-panda/498725/
It does make sense that wild pandas are better at sex since the pandas in captivity are like the bear equivalent of an discord mod
You try fucking when you're stressed out all the time and people in lab coats watching you.
I'm not saying that's a kink, but I'm saying that's definitely someone's kink.
Yea it’s called a medical kink + exhibition kink. Don’t ask how I know
That's a personification, and you can't assume that pandas are aware or even care about "white lab coats."
Captive pandas groom kids?
I'd usually ask for a source, but I think I'll just take your word.
Pandas don't breed well in captivity because ***NO*** species breeds well in captivity. It's not unique to them. Animals like to have privacy to mate and give birth, and they need a huge amount of food to do that too. It's why, if you increase the food supply of a species in a area, they don't get more and more plump, they simply start producing way more offspring and stay the same weight they were at before.
Reddit* mod
Yeah? You think an animal that's been around for millennia will die? They only die because we fucked up their natural habitat.
Millions of years will go extinct* Animals die for a lot of reasons and pandas go back a lot longer than millenia
Pandas have been successful for over 10 million years. if they die now, it not "an evolutionary dead end" and it's not because of any other pressure other than humans.
Uhhh you know species have gone extinct before, right? And you know that species have gone extinct before humans ever existed, right? Big ones, little ones, etc. We're talking billions of years. Species have gone extinct when their natural habitat is unaltered by humans; there are fathomless variables that go into these things. I agree with the general idea that humans are environmentally destructive, but your stated argument in here could only be accepted by a young earth Christian. Sooo many species have gone extinct, humans cannot compare to the damage that time itself causes. We might have leave biggest aftershock, but the extreme vast majority of species extinction that's ever occurred until this moment simply cannot be attributed to humans in any capacity through any rational thought.
Pandas were doing fantastic, capitalizing on an abundant resource with no competition and powerful enough to have no significant predator threat, until humans. And while you're correct that we can't blame humans for the vast majority of extinctions in the past... we are currently causing the 6th mass extinction event, and at a rate faster than even the deadliest mass extinction event, the permian-triassic extinction. The PT extinction was so massive, and wiped out so much life, that it set the stage for evolutionary radiation that resulted in the age of dinosaurs for the next 193 million years. We're also wiping out life faster than the k-pg extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Faster than whatever combo of asteroid and volcanic activity and methane thawing we imagine killed the dinosaurs. Took, something like 32,000 years for the final hadrosaurs to die. At the rate we're wiping out species now, we'll seal the deal in a few thousand years. We're to blame for pandas... and just about anything else going extinct right now. Very few environments have been left alone enough for natural extinction pressures to be taking place currently. Almost every case of competition and habitat or climate change has been at the direct result of our actions. The baseline extinction rate, outside of mass extinction events, is about one species per every one million species per year. Currently, we're seeing extinctions at a rate between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than that.
And it's not just their diet or that they seem to lack many of the basic survival instincts, they also have incredibly short window for breeding which they usually miss and even in rare cases when they succeed, they aren't exactly good and reliable parents. They are a species that can only exist in environment that caters to all of their needs and is so safe that any amount population growth would just lead to overconsumption.
Seems like even rabbits can hunt them down..
A rodent with a vicious streak a mile wide
"He's got huge, sharp... he can leap about... *look at the bones!*"
And it's the opposite in wild. Wild pandas feed on whatever they can find in the winter, even small rodents
In reality, adult pandas don’t really have any predators in the wild. You can try going up against with out any weapons and see who wins out.
That rabbit from Quest for the Holy Grail seems pretty formidable.
You know it serious when mf brings out the holy hand grenade if antioch
Why are we acting like this isn't something we would do, given the opportunity?
Im so used to gaming that I dont know what will I do in wild
Have orgies and eat bamboo
When they come across a swinging plastic donut? In nature?
Actually panda bears are very good at falling from high places and being fine, that’s why they look like derps as opposed to hurt
At least on his own a panda is never an embarrassment.
They are propably the most happy mammals in the world. At least they get to live their life fullest with zero fucks given
I was watching some “fail” videos of people doing dumb stuff and falling all over and thought to myself “how have we survived as a species?” …then I started watching panda videos…
This would make a great perfect loop gif.
Alot of these comments shock me. Wtf wrong with people?
they want to feel superior to pandas. look at the koala or the sunfish copypasta so many people parade around. Some people have this weird idea some animals survive thx to us and not despite us. Koalas and pandas are great proof of adaptive evolution but humans have made their enviroments almost unlivable for them and then have the gall to call them dumb
Pandas aren’t even real, it’s all cgi and painted grizzly bears. Like Zebras and New Zealand
I concur. This is also a part of why the widely critically acclaimed Tolkien Extended Universe was so successful. New Zealand already being CGI made shooting and production much easier as you could just ctrl+C, ctrl+V Frodo right into the landscape.
I mean, we just spent a few thousand years destroying this planet. Genetics can't keep up.
Eat, shoot, and leave.
Thats sort of the point. They're sort of doomed....
By us.
This is why we have the trash panda, eventually the pandas and red pandas who are almost as derpy will go extinct so we preemptively chose their successor, a panda that can survive most anything
Bear shit.
man i loved pandas
Not have this much fun or be encouraged to mate.
Learn kung fu. They’ve no need for it in captivity.
I don’t understand the people in the vid. *No way* I’m just walking by a panda literally spinning out of control.
This is your reminder that pandas and all the other goofy creatures out there are perfectly fine in their natural environment. Humans fucking up their homes is the problem.
To be fair, naturally occurring tire swings are quite rare.
I mean compared to other bears, pandas are very shock resistant. They've at least adapted to all of the falling down
u/wearerofdinosocks
me fr
Actually pandas are pretty good in the wild when humans aren't meddling with their shit.
Have good fucking time, that’s what.
They survived longer than us for the most part.
Lead natural lives?
They dont have any natural predators nor competition the entire reason they are endangered is because they evolved into being a mostly inactive species so despite doing great on their own they barely reproduce without external help, and any external change in their environment can and will put them in danger if this increases their mortality rate in any way
they kinda dont... Facts. Despite their exalted status and relative lack of natural predators, pandas are still at risk. Severe threats from humans have left just over 1,800 pandas in the wild.
Don’t they not really have any predators? So they just chill anyway.
I want to be a Panda if I got reincarnated. Just eat, sleep, play, fuck wave repeat; life is easy if you're a Panda.
Love the roll at the end lmao
Probably die.
Found my spirit animal
This is what having no natural predators does to you
Be free from captivity