how are they still alive?

Pandas are probably the most useless creatures in the world.

Now, I like pandas. They're cute. But, that cuteness is probably the only thing they have going for them. Otherwise, they'd probably have died out already.

Take a look at this clip on pandas from the BBC documentary Planet Earth:



There are some differences highlighted between panda bears and other bears. First of all, they don't hibernate because their main source of food, bamboo, produces very few nutrients. Ok, there's something called natural selection, and my question is: how the hell has the panda not adapted to something that'll do them some good? It's like if humans only ate paste for a living. The documentary also mentions that bamboo only really grows at certain altitudes, which means that the pandas have to endure freezing weather in order to eat flavorless plantlife that provides next to no benefit while their animal counterparts sleep cozily in dens for the winter. Can you say 'fail at life?'

Citing another line from the video, panda cubs are weak for a while because "milk produced on the diet of bamboo is wretchedly poor." I thought one of the main tenets of biological life is to procreate and continue the species, not starve your children as a ploy to get pitying people to take you to the San Diego Zoo. If what you're eating sucks ass, it might be time to find something else to eat.

This brings me to the zoos. Pandas won't even have sex to save their species. And that just makes me sad. Ok sure, live life eating the dietary approximation of nothing - people do that too. But sex? C'mon, manbears, how can you forsake sex?

(Above: Maybe years of evolution wore away the pandas' beer goggles and all they see are fat bears. Img from: http://maaadddog.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/beergoggles.jpg)

So the next time you go to a zoo and wander over to the panda exhibit, keep in mind that humans are cruelly keeping alive a species that simply does not want to exist.