Pretty much everyone agrees that pandas are adorable, but there are those who claim that the money we've been spending on panda conservation would be better spent on other species and that we should just let pandas die off and worry about other creatures instead. in 2009, David Plotz of Slate wrote: "Pandas are not ill-natured. They are worse: They are no-natured. Drearier animals you cannot imagine. They are highly anti-social, detesting interaction with other pandas and people."
For those who disagree with this concept, Popular Science writer Dan Nosowitz has many strong argurments to argue with those who say pandas don't deserve to live. While you should certainly read the whole thing, the bottom line is that pandas have evolved just fine to survive in their environment. The reason they're having problems now is only because we have interfered with their ecosystem to the point that they can't survive in it properly -that means we owe it to them to help stop their extinction and to right the wrongs of our own species.
Image Via Fernando Revilla [Wikipedia]
We coulda saved 'em.
Dang.