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Picking on the panda

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-24 08:24

When BBC broadcaster Chris Packham said on Tuesday that giant pandas should be left to die out, he was not being sensible. As a BBC nature presenter, he said that the giant panda has "gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac". He added: "It's not a strong species ... I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go with a degree of dignity."

It is a most problematic conclusion for him, a nature presenter, to reach such a conclusion.

True, with only about 2,000 in the wild and around 250 in captivity, the giant panda is a species on the verge of extinction. If that constitutes the reason for us to pull the plug and let it die out, many more species will be justified in being consigned to face the same fate and wild life protection workers should all stop their work.

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True, the giant panda is not a strong species. But which one is? Count the number of species that have already died out. Very few animals are strong in the face of the rapid development of human civilization. They are not strong because we are too strong. What is more important is it is too late for us to realize that their existence is important for our own.

In the past hundreds of years, our encroachment on the habitats of a lot of wild animals has not only caused the extinction of hundreds of species, but also resulted in climate change. As everybody knows, global warming is posing an increasing threat to our own existence.

So the efforts to protect species on the verge of extinction from dying out are also endeavors to save ourselves if we also focus on the protection and restoration of their habitats.

There are examples of species having been saved by human efforts from dying out. It is irresponsible and heartless for a nature expert to claim that we should give up efforts to protect the giant panda, which has been loved by people worldwide and belongs to a select breed of animals qualifying as "charismatic megafauna".

Packham should not turn a blind eye to the efforts Chinese nature experts have made in making artificial inseminated giant pandas accustomed to wild life. Though they have not succeeded yet in letting them live on their own in the wilderness, they know that is the right way to protect the species from dying out.

The giant panda is known as a living fossil as it is among the very few survivors from half a million years ago. Its survival for that many years itself is a miracle for scientists to study.

Without enough attention to the protection of habitats for wildlife in the further development of human civilization, more species, maybe including the giant panda, will die out in the years to come.

That is by no means reason enough for us to pull the plug on the protection of quite a number of species on the verge of extinction. As long as there is a slim of hope of preventing a species from dying out, we should never give up. The human being as a species will possibly die out someday, given the increasingly serious global warming, but can we say, "Let's pull the plug on all that we are doing to improve our lives?"

Mr Packham, please be sensible when you are on a program.

(China Daily 09/24/2009 page8)