It is hard to see the 3 foot tall, 250 pound panda as anything else but an adorable ball of fluff and innocence that stuffs itself on bamboo. However, the giant panda has turned into a commodity by becoming the foreign policy weapon of China.
China will loan a panda to foreign countries for a ten year period costing 10 million dollars. Pandas are loaned to other countries as a friendly gesture in order to improve and/or maintain international relations.
This all seems nice and friendly, but the serious issues surrounding the giant panda is being ignored.
The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species; there are roughly 1,600 pandas living in the wild. This is because female pandas reproduce so slowly-only once a year, and the male pandas have a notoriously low sex drive. The pandas' natural habitat in the mountains of Sichuan province is getting smaller and smaller each year. Farming and economic pressures continue to push the pandas higher and higher up into the mountains causing significant habitat loss and bamboo loss for the pandas. However, the Chinese government has been making many strides in association with the World Wildlife Fund to help teach and uphold conservation of the natural habitat.
I find it difficult to support sending an endangered species from its natural habitat to foreign country just to have the panda sit in a zoo where people can gawk and stare at these helpless animals.
I'm very interested in hearing whether the Chinese people consider the panda a commodity and whether they support panda diplomacy.
Pandas are only found in a few mountain ranges of China, if I were Chinese, I wouldn't want to exploit such a rare and unique creature.
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