With only about 1,600 left in the wild, pandas are an endangered species, and they have been an important part of Chinese culture for centuries. So, why is the country that features pandas on its currency, loaning them to other countries?
“If you want to get a sense of China’s economic priorities, follow the pandas,” said Sophia Yan in an article for CNN Money.
According to Yan, China has been known to reward countries with pandas if they do at least one of the following: sign a free trade agreement with China, provide the country with key energy technology or supply it with uranium to power its nuclear reactors.
But the pandas aren’t a free gift. They’re an expensive responsibility. China loans a pair of pandas at the cost of about $1 million per year. And pandas aren’t new to diplomatic trade. In the 1980s, China made pandas available for short-term rental at the cost of $100,000 per month for a pair.
Not only must the zoos pay China for the privilege of having the pandas, but they also must pay for conservation projects. Part of this cost is offset by the number of visitors that pandas attract to the zoos, but owning pandas is still a costly endeavor.
Because of the value associated with pandas in Chinese culture, China is very selective when it comes to loaning pandas.
“[China] values pandas as their number one animal,” said Suzanne Gendron, director of Hong Kong’s Ocean Park Conservation Foundation. “You wouldn’t want to give a panda to someone you don’t trust.”
The panda-loaning project seems well-intentioned. Pandas symbolize friendship and peace in the Chinese culture, and sharing them with the world is a benevolent notion.
But Oxford University’s Kathleen Buckingham seems to have the wrong idea. “China needs to remain selective in its choice of panda-receiving countries in order to maintain the rarity, and therefore, their value,” Buckingham said.
Buckingham’s statement suggests that we keep the animals perpetually endangered. This is the exact opposite of what China and the world should be working toward. If China really wants to help the species, it should keep the pandas in their natural environment rather than shipping them around the world.
Captivity affects how pandas breed — in captivity, they rarely breed on their own. According to Animal Planet, male pandas are more attracted and likely to mate with female pandas when they have competition, and in most zoos outside of China, there is no competition.
Some zoos are trying to overcome this using artificial insemination, which has been only mildly successful due to pandas’ physiology. Female pandas are only fertile for 24-36 hours out of the year, according to Animal Planet.
PETA called zoos “pitiful prisons.” I wouldn’t take it that far — zoos do a lot of good things for animals by increasing public awareness and protecting endangered species from predators.
But zoo life is not ideal for animals. It would be preferable to allow the animals to live in their natural environment in China. The problem is that bamboo forests are becoming scarce, even in China. According to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, China produces 57 billion pairs of chopsticks per year, which requires more than 1.18 million square meters of forest.
Instead of putting the animals through the undue stress of shipping or flying them around the world, China should be working to stabilize its bamboo forests so pandas have an environment in which they can grow their population.
China values pandas so much that some of its coins feature the animals. But if the country wanted to really demonstrate how much it cares, it would stop treating the animals as moneymaking tools.
