Panda mania: How these bears drive zoo visits and wildlife conservation efforts
WASHINGTON – Pandas are, to many, a gateway animal. People are drawn in by the bears’ charm and sweetness and before they know it, they’re hooked: spending hours staring through the glass at panda habitats, pouring over clips of the bears online and purchasing their images on T-shirts and keychains.
Eventually, that enthusiasm can trickle down to other animals, too.
Frances Nguyen, a longtime panda fanatic who runs the conservation group, “Pandas Unlimited,” says the cuddly animals deepened her appreciation for wildlife. After the Smithsonian’s National Zoo lost three giant pandas in November 2023 following the expiration of their lease, Nguyen continued to frequent the zoo, visiting its sea lions and orangutans, instead.
The experience is more common than you might expect. These unflinchingly charismatic megafaunas aren’t all fluff – ecologists argue that their popularity helps fund and protect countless other threatened species across the globe.
“People will come to the zoo to see a giant panda, and then they'll fall in love with a naked mole rat,” said Brandie Smith, the director of the National Zoo, during an appearance on the Paste BN podcast "The Excerpt."
“Pandas are kind of like the gateway animal for a lot of people to caring for and appreciating wildlife.”
Are Panda’s worthy of love?
It might be hard to believe, but not everyone is obsessed with the giant panda. Some, including British naturalist Chris Packham, have argued that the black and white bears aren’t worth saving.
Pandas spend between 10 and 16 hours of their day eating, just to consume enough bamboo to satiate their appetite. They’re also terrible at mating. Female pandas are only fertile for two or three days a year which makes it difficult for them to reproduce.
Panda haters often argue that the billions of dollars that are spent to prevent them from going extinct would be better allocated to saving more adaptable species.
But over the last several decades, Pandas have become the symbol of successful conservation efforts across the globe. Within the last decade, the once-endangered species have been reclassified as "vulnerable” as their population has grown in China and around the world.
And since its founding in 1961, the World Wildlife Fund, a preeminent wilderness preservation organization, has used the panda in its logo. Why all the fuss?
“If you've seen a baby giant panda, you would not ask that,” said Stuart Pimm, the Doris Duke chair of conservation ecology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
Cash ... Pandas?
Panda exhibits often drive visitors and revenue to zoos. And their appeal directly impacts other animals.
“We utilize these charismatic species like the giant panda to drive whole conservation programs,” said Michael Brown-Pallsgrove, curator of giant pandas at the National Zoo.
Sales brought in at the zoo’s gift shops and dining facilities are funneled into its ongoing efforts to protect endangered species.
Pimm, who previously served on its advisory board, said the zoo once saved a monkey native to Brazil called the Golden Lion Tamarin from “almost certain extinction” by breeding them and releasing them into the wild,
As the zoo’s biggest draw, the pandas, play a big part in its revenue.
Last year, the zoo saw a 20% drop in visitors, which it attributes in part to the departure of its giant pandas in late 2023. And since the announcement of two new pandas, Bao Li and Qing Bao, who debuted to the public on Friday, the zoo has gained more than 1,000 new members.
Pandas help protect other species
Money spent to preserve the bears' wild habitats also benefits other species.
Giant pandas live in the Sichuan, Yunnan, Nan Mountains, and Hainan regions of China. These same regions are also home to 70% of the forest birds in mainland China, 70% of its forest mammals and 31% of forest amphibians, according to a 2015 Duke University study.
Giant pandas are often described as an umbrella species because their protection ensures the safety of other animals and plants that share a habitat with them. Amid the blitz of conservation efforts and research focused on the beloved bears, other animals in the same habitats have seen rises in population.
One analysis from 2018 suggested that the financial benefit of panda conservation in China was 10 to 27 times higher than the cost.
“Because of the time and effort and resources that have gone to saving the giant panda and giant panda habitat, there are other species that are being saved,” Brown-Palsgrove said.