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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-05-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmIiQvj_XPI
I am passionate about wildlife I have spent my entire life studying wildlife trying to understand as much about them as I can so that I can help find a place for wildlife in a world full of people I worked in many countries with many different animals and when I meet people and I start telling my life story sooner or later comes out that I'm the panda
guy at the national zoo and all conversation breaks down at that point people go oh my gawd and then they ask three questions have you ever paid in the panda bear picked panned up and can you get me inside the national zoo exposure so I can pick up a panda I have to let you know I'm not so enamored with panties to me they're an average
animal if I was a professor I would say they're a solid be no better no worse but I seem to be alone in this category ation of pandas how many of you have looked at the web camera panned the cam in the last week if I said the name bow bow how many of you would know that that's the name of the baby panda you are
the same people who do not know the name of the person sitting next to you in your Monday morning class yeah you know the name of all the giant pandas at the national zoo you might have a sickness a sickness called pan the love and I hope that today we can examine the sickness a little more see if you have it why do you love pandas
they're not new they were described back in the mid eighteen hundreds by a Jesuit priest so unless you go to Georgetown I don't think you'd be enamored with that point they've been around a long time yes they are endangered they occupy only a small part of their range but that all happened about two hundred years ago they've been in danger for all of your life times
this is not a new problem the endangerment Israel they live in many small isolated populations up in the mountains of China and I spent a good time my life in all of the sites looking for pandas I hope you know there's one other thing called pan at the red panda %HESITATION there's only a we don't know why these things a whole pan is we think it
has to do with the Chinese word for it bamboo either but we're not sure I hope you're aware that red pandas are not related to giant pandas red pandas are raccoon giant pandas are a bear and they're an average bear they're not the biggest bear they're not the smallest bear they're just a bare an average bear if I took that panda and I ripped off its
skin and ripped off its flash this is what it would look like it's a bear if I took its gall inputted spitball out in front of you you couldn't tell that bear from another bear the big canines the sharp teeth nobody would think of picking up a grizzly bear what you all want to pick up a panda bear that's the panda bear skull right there you
say no no no it's the color I love that color that black and white stuff that is unique no other bear looks like that now that's average there's an all white bear there's an all black bear but most pairs are black and white like the panda very average you say no it's not the color it's the way the face looks look at that face look at
those eyes look at that mouth that is cute and you're right your hard wired to love that face that face looks a lot like a baby faced the big guys the round look the little Cupid mouth either you're hard wired to love babies or you spend too much time watching cartoons as a young child because that's exactly the look they give you in Disney all those
Betty Boop Mickey Mouse Minnie mouse the big guys the round face the big ears the black and white that could be why you love pandas too much TV some of you are now merged with the pandas mating issues these are the giant pandas at the national zoo you don't need a PhD like me to figure out this is not going to work I don't even have
to tell you which is the male and which is the female it's not a winning combination Jews have tried very hard to get around this problem one zoo had two hours required panda porn everyday these pandas were locked in a small cage and shown these videos for two hours at a time and it works they produce babies the national zoo did not go that way the
national zoo through technology at this thing they tried all the latest repro things that you would do to get a human pregnant they do on the pandas and it works it has worked there's a myth that pandas are very rare in captivity but that's not true the the national the national society made up used to have a a goal of two hundred pandas in captivity if
we could just get two hundred pandas will they blew past two hundred pan is about five years ago so they reset it at three hundred pandas if we just had three hundred pandas last year they went past three hundred pandas and now they're saying if we just had five hundred pandas in captivity they've solved all those breeding issues through the use of technology but pandas are
not rare in captivity anymore which you probably don't know and what you probably isn't in your figuring is count the number of digits on that top hand panda has six fingers what I did was one of its response grew out and created a farm pandas have thumbs now phones thumbs a what made you great thumbs what allowed you to build tools carry babies text thongs are
what led to you men domination of the world pandas have thumbs why aren't they dominating this world because what they do all they do with their thumbs is he bamboo and they eat it hour after hour after hour they eat about sixteen hours the eighteen hours a day they eat bamboo and that's what they use their thumbs for I he bamboo if you've ever been in
a bamboo forest it's wet it's dark it's claustrophobic and it's full of leeches it's not a you spend the day in a panda forest and you come out a little bit crazy I'm the pay and the guy I hem the panda expert I rarely ever see a panda what I see is the result of eighteen hours a meeting bamboo all day long pandas defecate about a
hundred times a day that's something to love so I never see the actual panda I look for the poop this is a gold mine to me from this I can get hormones I can get a D. N. A. and I can say that is a pan the poop so I'm the only one in this room when you say panda I think poop and leeches that's why
I'm not enamored with giant pandas well let's just say I'm alone in this whole room alone that pandas have value they have value because you gave them value they are the big point of the natural world and we can use that value we can use that value to do good or we can use that value to do evil there have been good things done with that
value that pandas bring the Chinese who recognize that value right off the bat those first panned is as Tom mentioned were exchange to open up doors we want to open up a door with it with United States let's give them some pandas we want to open up a door with Great Britain let's give them some pandas they got out of there pretty quickly they turn from
gifting the leasing and the leasing generated millions of dollars four panda conservation in China recently now they got away from that gifting you can no longer get a panda in the United States they're now looking for a strategic partners partners that have natural resources that they want they are using the pandas to trade for those natural resources that is using the value that you have given
to pandas but what they've done very well is help set up reserves for pandas this is a map here of where pandas exist all attaching areas are the distribution of pandas and if we look at the panda reserves in nineteen sixty five when China was closed to the outside world not so much there were a few reserves but not a lot but as you go through
time when you get that influx of money those least funds that were paid year after year have we've created more and more panda reserves they are now the most protected animal on this planet in in regards to number of individuals protected and mind of habitat protected that's a great job for an average bear that that establishment of reserves though has another intent has another outcome there
are other animals that live in that reserve this is a yellow throated marten it's a ferocious hunter it hunts in pairs it's a gorgeous animal it lives in panda reserves you know nothing about it but it lives in those reserves set up for giant pandas this is a syrup out a cross between my little pony and misty a chickadee this is a real animal a real
animal living out there in the forest you don't love this animal but you love it true loving giant pandas this is a golden pheasant this is a these are its real colors it's that right it's that beautiful and it lives in those bamboo forests this is my favorite a takin this big lumbering beast a exist pretty much only in panda reserves the poster child though is
the Asia attic black bear when I go around to reserve that I interviewed villagers they love the panda just the way you love the panda but at the bottom of their list the animal they hate the most the animal they would kill if they could get their hands on it Izzy Asiata black bear because it eats corn and the tiny and that's what they need to
survive these bears are most abundant inside nature inside panda reserves so your love of pandas have created a place for these animals to live so don't worry yes you are sick but it's a good six you're a good six go to sleep tonight with you panda cam on check at that learn the names of all the pandas what you're doing is your love is translating and
