Panda Update... Thanks to Lolcats For The Pic

As a world reviled expert in pandas, I was delivered an important research document recently. 

Giant Pandas: The Last Refuge. (A DVD that came with my copy of the Sunday Telegraph).

Choice quotes (in an almost un-manipulated order): 

“For nearly a decade, these Chinese scientists have scoured the jungle for these elusive animals.” 

“Black and white on an entirely green background.”

“Eat for 17 hours a day... and then sleep.”

“Eat up to three different parts of the same bamboo patch.”

“… are so experimental in their younger months, that they will even explore small trees. But as they age, will lose their interest in other things, and only eat bamboo.”

“A diet that yields just 17% usefulness to the panda’s digestive tract.”

“… falls instantly asleep where it feeds when it is full.”

“The male, named ‘Lucky‘, is turned in by local villagers who were tired of his barking, was found to have a taste for plastic raincoats, metal b.b.q. utensils, and anything else that would disrupt his digestive tract.” 

"... grown overweight in captivity, so that mating only results in loud barking and an unsuccessful wrestling match."

“... then developed a taste for antibiotics.”

“… blood tests to confirm whether they are entirely first cousins.”

“Enslaved by the need to feed constantly.”

“… and maybe we can learn from them, for ancient armies at war in feudal China, did not wave a white flag of surrender. Instead, as a symbol peace, they waved the image of the panda.”

At the start of the DVD, National Geographic had its old promo where it went through some average lifetime statistics, by way of pointing out what useful things you could be doing with your own - three days looking for the remote, 30 years asleep etc etc. They said, "on average you will laugh 18 times a day." That statistic is obviously not accounting for pandas.