I’m an animal-lover, and I’m not for letting pandas die out or anything. I like them all right. They’re good models for National Zoo souvenirs. They look like they’d be good to use as living pillows.
But I do think they are highly overrated animals. Here are the reasons why:
1) They don’t do anything, really. Pandas *might* be even less active than cats, which is saying something. Basically, they just sleep and occasionally eat some bamboo. That’s it. Not very interesting to watch.
2) They are destined to die out, short of massive human intervention, and have no survival instinct. As I say, I’m all for the human intervention. I’m just saying, I’m not convinced the chances of survival for an animal species that seems pretty ambivalent towards sex are very high. They also don’t seem great at keeping baby pandas alive when they do magically appear. This sucks for pandas, but I’m not sure that they’re really well-geared, evolutionarily.
3) They’re not even real bears. Or at least, there’s a good chance they’re not. In fact, they may be overgrown, less color-diverse raccoons. Seriously.
4) Out of all the cute animals, are they really that much cuter? Are pandas really cuter than any of: cats, rabbits, otters, sheep, dolphins, bushbabies, or– let’s get real, here– red pandas? Red pandas are clearly cuter than giant pandas.
Again, I’m for panda conservation programs, and breeding more of them and I liked looking at baby Bao Bao, too. But are pandas really that awesome? Or are they just kind of average as cute animals go?
