By Kate Snow
Rock Center Correspondent
Who wouldn’t want to fly across the world and spend a week with giant pandas? They are undeniably cute. Everyone is obsessed with those black and white fuzzy faces. We celebrate when one is born at a zoo. We know their names. We’ll watch a YouTube video of them over and over again. This one, which shows a baby panda sneezing, has more than 150 million hits. I dare you not to click the link.
For this story, we traveled to Chengdu, China, a city of 14 million people. It’s the capital of the Sichuan province in southwest China. Chengdu is known for spicy Sichuan chili dishes that make your tongue go numb, but also for being the hometown of the giant panda. Back in 1987, when it became apparent that pandas were seriously endangered in the wild, the Chinese created the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Starting with just six pandas from the wild, they’ve successfully bred more than 100 pandas.
Here, female pandas are monitored constantly to pinpoint the one day of the year – or the few hours -- when they’ll be able to conceive. They are typically artificially inseminated. Test tubes of panda sperm are kept in vats of liquid nitrogen. Mothers stay with their babies for a while but they’re eventually put back on the breeding program so the cycle can start again.
Sarah Bexell, an American who has worked at Chengdu for 13 years, says the lives of the staff revolve around the fertility cycle of the female pandas. “When our cubs are about to arrive, some of our staff live there 24-7,” she said. She’s also a coauthor of a new book called, “Giant Pandas: Born Survivors.”
The cubs I saw on this visit were four months old and just learning to walk. Their fur was soft as silk.
Too much for one species?
The work done at Chengdu and other breeding centers costs millions of dollars a year. Experts believe more money is probably being spent to save the giant panda than any other species in the world.
But is that a good idea?
While this may sound like heresy to panda lovers, is it possible that we’re spending too much to save the giant panda?
“I think we have to make tough choices,” British wildlife expert, Chris Packham, said. “I think that, ultimately, we have to be pragmatic as well as sentimental. You know, we can't allow our heart to rule our conservation head… And if we channel this much into just one species, then many others, which could be far better helped, many other not just species, but communities and ecosystems, could be better protected at the expense of one fluffy, cuddly bear.”
Packham is in the minority here, but a growing number of scientists agree.
Bexell and her colleagues at Chengdu’s breeding center are not among them. They firmly believe the panda is worth saving. And they worry that without the panda as a symbol for the conservation movement, people might not give any money to saving any species at all.
“Where would that money go? Maybe people would go and buy a new iPod instead. You know, instead of throwing that money towards conservation,” Bexell said.
Humans pushed giant pandas to the brink of extinction, Bexell said, and it is up to us to find a way to save them.
“I think pandas are symbolic. We all love them. We all want to share the earth with them. And if we truly cannot save space for giant pandas, what does that say about us as a species? And how could we ever have hope for any of the others if we can't save the one that we profess to love the most?”
Editor's Note: Kate Snow's full report airs Fri., Feb. 22 at 10pm/9c on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Leave a Comment:
The World Wildlife organization should be leaning on CHINA to provide more assistance towards the preservation of Pandas.
People we need to change our way of thinking. Quit supporting the "Kardasian's" of the real world and use it to save our habitats and our wildlife. We all need each other humans and animals alike. Make the right choices !!
why don't we stop paycheck on the sciencist who think we need to be rid of this beautiful animal God has created for us. We probably do spend to much on the research of this and many other animals. but look what is wasted in Congress, we waste Trillions of dollars paying in taxes for no representation. Man is the most wasteful animal on this planet, the money we waste, the oil we waste, the coal we waste, and the list goes on and on. We need to stop being a throw away sociaty and start balanceing our budgets, and then maybe we could learn to help the animals that God put in our care.
"Our" budgets "Are" balanced. It's the governments who spend too much. At the moment saving myself from them so I don't end up like the Panda that's important.
China is a big country. Surely they can make accomodations for their national symbol? We did. The bald eagle was just about wiped out, now they're in back yards.
We have a resonsibility to all living things on this planet, except dufesses like Baur-tard. Go jump in a toxic waste dump and extict yourself, dip.
It seems a bit hypocritical to me how some people cry for the elephants and how inhumane it is to kill them for their tusks and yet have no problem chowing down on a hamburger or chicken leg or a pork chop.
Are elephants or pandas more important than cows, chickens or pigs because they're cute or majestic? Who are we to judge? The fact is that some animals exist for consumption.
As to whether too much money is being spent on pandas... I think it's up to the donor to decide where they want their money to go. If you wanna spend your cash saving the whales or whatever, more power to ya. Just stop whining about the pandas or elephants when other animals are treated just as bad.
Like thousands and probably millions of species before them, they are destined to die out. Eventually the world will change and even humans will die out. Whether it is the result of human action or nature does not matter, the world is a changing place whether people want to recognize it or not. Global warming, human expansion, volcanic eruptions or astroids colliding with the earth, eventually everything will go and something new will replace it. It makes more sense to spend the money improving the lives of people who live in deplorable conditions than save a species whose time is simply up.
Too bad we didn't show the same sentiment for the Quagga, Great Auk, Dodo, Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Java Tiger, Atlas Bear, Falkland Dog, Tasmanian Wolf, the list goes on and on!
As I have already stated, it's for each of us to decide how best to spend our money. It comes down to - You attend your church and I'll attend mine.
Um...it's China's national animal. No way in hell will they let them die out.
we spend billions killing people in foreign lands. we can save life as well as destroy it.
This planet has seen many species come and go so why should the Giant Panda be any different? Eventually the human species will become extinct and other animals will flourish. I say let nature take its course and either they make it or they don't. I pretty sure most scientist and researchers call that evolution.
Perhaps it's the scientistific critics who are not worth paying/saving. Are they not after all saying, "Spend some money on my field of expertise also". The public should decide and not those who have an axe to grind - It is after all - Our Money.
Why spend millions??? Scientists, frozen semen.....silly. Here's an idea: It's called a CONSERVATION AREA. PUT SEVERAL MATING PAIRS IN IT AND LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE. The Chinese are fairly civilized folks (unlike Africans), even if they weren't cowed into submission by their totalitarian government, they would probably leave a designated panda sanctuary alone.
When all the plants die the earth will die.When all the animals die the earth will die.When all the humans die the earth will flourish.Humans are the most destructive force on earth and the only inhabitants that destroy their own support base. Save Pandas? Without a doubt.
You're right. However facts are facts. We make the decisions no matter how inocuous and ridiculous they are. Pandas and whales have no money. Good read on this subject - "The Bridge" by D. Keith Mano(I believe).
Should "We" spend the money? I thought it was the Chinese spending the money. They seem to think it worthwhile and I am glad they do.
Only arrogant humans would propose such a preposterous thought! To delibertely stop trying to save these most beloved and precious beings is unthinkable! It would be a failure of will that would shatter the conservation movement as well as human integrity.
The arogance here is thinking that we can do anything to save them if nature has decided it's time for them to go. You sure don't fit Darwins model.
With all due respect to you and Darwin, did nature decide it was time for the bald eagle and gray wolf to go, or did the humble side of humans step in and save them from extinction?
Look, when Pandas lose the will to mate, it's time to let THEM decide. We're not hunting them, nature is.
Wild tigers will be extinct in the next 30 years. Pandas will probably face the same fate in 50 years. They will not be extinct but extinct in the wild. No one seems to care that the tigers will be extinct in the wild. It makes me sad that we are so selective about which species we save. Maybe we need to worry about the fact that bees are not polenating crops like they used to and it gets a little worse each year. Soon we will be extinct because we didn't think about finding an answer to the one problem that will truly affect us. But if the history of the earth has taught us anything is that lfe goes on just in different forms. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 65 millions years...now they are fueling our cars! I wonder what species we will be fueling when our time is up?
YES! Pandas are worth saving. Just ask any little kid @ the zoo,
or see that kid reading a story book about Pandas.
The question should be: "Are critics worth saving?"
Do away with their $$$ salaries & it could help the Pandas.
Time to spend less money on saving the human species, the one that causes more mayhem and damage to this earth than the rest of the animal kingdom combined.
Funny, this site isn't posting my outrage.
My third attempt. Maybe they didn't like what I had to say about the critics and their lack of skills to do something without killing off a species, or their lack of intelligence or drive to make the world a better place with a more conducive effort.
Unlike other endangered species, the giant panda is not being slaughtered or hunted for "medicinal" or "sporting" purposes. Pandas simply don't seem to have sufficient desire to propagate and should be allowed to become extinct. The human intervention to *force* their continued existence goes against the laws of nature and cannot be scientifically justified.
You too! Some guy had the idea that if you prepared a meal of them and it was tasty that Panda farms would explode all over the planet. If we can eat it we save it. Crass as it sounds it really has a brilliance to it. We donate millions to select people to save 10 maybe twenty animals from extinction. Each day they beg for more and more money but they never seem to get anywhere and at the same time manage to build up monstrous corporate entities whose job it is to beg for more money to save a few animals whose numbers never seem to grow. Farmers however would not only breed the animal but make sure that it was healthy and bred at the right time so the numbers would increase until you have a sizable amount of animals to more than continue the species but give you a nutritious meal at the same time. The Panda's would be saved.
We all enjoy our animals and spend our money--$Billions$-- to save them, pamper them, preserve them. I don't see a problem. Everyone has an opinion on how they think the other person should act toward human suffering, animal rights environmental concerns.
My 89 yr old father prefers to contribute to starving african children and gets upset when I tell him I contribute to our local homeless before that.