Pandas. They are the symbol of the WWF. That’s the World Wildlife Fund, not the World Wrestling Federation – but now that I say it, imagine an entertaining blend of the two… but back to the panda. I think it got the job simply because the WWF is a poor charity on a budget. An easily identified symbol for your pamphlets, printed cheaply in black and white, is ideal.
Of course, pandas are also in the upper-stratospheric levels of cute. However, in line with the previous piece in this blog about dwarves, it doesn’t matter how cute they are, I’m not fooled and I’m over them.
Pandas are useless. They are the most ill adapted animal for their environment I can think of off the top of my head, and let’s face it, most of my thoughts are no more considered than that, but read me out.
They are a carnivore in a herbivorous environment. This means their short meat eating guts have to be fed all day, to wring enough nutrients out of their all-bamboo diet to survive. When I say all day, I’m not exaggerating, they sit and eat all day.
They’re not too bright - if you want to laugh yourself silly at some animal footage, go to YouTube and search for “Panda Frightened by Baby”. (I’ll find the link when I’m on a computer that will allow me to, but seriously, those words will bring it up straight away.)
I’ve also seen footage of an English doco maker, clambering through some mountainous bamboo forests, whilst narrating something close to the following:
“… and it was in this region, exactly a year ago, that we first released Xia Xia back into the wild. In the first 4 months the radio transponder fell silent, so we are expecting an arduous search over the next few weeks to locate the…. Oh and here he is…”
Followed by a rushing noise as a panda looks up from his circle of cleared bamboo, recognises his ex-keepers, and comes running over doing his best impersonation of a child lost at an airport. If pandas could talk he would have said,
“Oh thank god you came back, you have no idea how much a bamboo forest sucks. It’s wet, it’s cold, and I’ve only been able to eat in this little circle here… where you dropped me… ages ago… heeeeeey wait a minute…, you’ve changed your clothes. You mean it wasn’t an accident? Hey, hey, where are you going? Can I come too? Hey!”
The useless black and white bastard hadn’t moved an inch in a year. Just sat and ate.
It’s no surprise that they are forced to eat bamboo too. It’s the only living thing a panda can sneak up on. Of what possible evolutionary advantage was being coloured black and white in an all green environment? You’d suspect that it gave some advantage in being able to pick each other out of the forest - for mating reasons. But they have proven themselves hopeless at mating.
The Chinese keepers involved in the breeding programme, have had to produce panda-porn to try and get the bludging, black and white boofheads, up and on the job. Doesn’t work a lot of the time apparently.
One other thing about being black and white. If you are, please try and keep your white bits a bit cleaner. The high contrast of the black on white, means it's really obvious when you're not keeping your fur in tip top nick. Polar Bears can get a bit grubby and get away with it, it takes a while to really notice because there's nothing to compare it to (it's just like my car). However pandas are their own test pattern.
Finally, and I learnt this from a mate who has just been in the south of China photographing them(one of his above), they don’t have proper thumbs. The original digit like other bears have, fell off a while ago (probably from sucking it too much). They then changed their tiny minds and it reappeared as an extension of a bone further up the wrist and arm. So they don’t even have opposable thumbs. That means if you ring up a panda to tell him how useless he is, he can’t even answer the phone.
It's inevitable that they'd become endangered.
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