I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I love giant pandas, but they probably should be extinct.
I know this is a very controversial opinion to hold in the nation's capital, but they are evolutionary jokes and self-sabotagers to boot. If you look up pandas' scientific classification, they are in the order Carnivora. That means they have the digestive system of a carnivore. But what do pandas like to eat? All together, children: BAMBOO! Almost exclusively! One of the least nutrient-rich foods around for a carnivore's digestive system! That's right, they're basically the cute fuzzy version of a person who eats nothing but Twizzlers.
They derive extremely little energy and protein from bamboo and compensate by eating HUGE amounts of bamboo every day, spending almost all of their time eating just to obtain enough energy to go through basic life functions. Because bamboo has flowering, death, and regeneration seasons, a panda must also live in an environment with at least two different species of bamboo available so they don't starve to death due to a lack of bamboo. So let's see, very picky possibilities for environment AND they go through a huge amount of bamboo every day... that must mean they are accustomed to migrating around to find new habitats?
Sort of. They move between the mountains and valleys to get the nutrients they need, but, like I said, they are VERY low on energy and don't always get around so well. Did I mention that the nutrient-rich bamboo shoots are only available at high altitudes in the summer? Pandas who don't get to those protein-rich shoots on time suffer from low protein and calcium... which, of course, makes it even HARDER to get to the top of the mountains. Thanks to humans destroying pandas' habitats, there's an even more limited number of places where pandas can reliably live and eat.
Another factor here is mating. Pandas are, by nature, solitary creatures. Their brief mating season is between March and May. A female's estrus lasts for 2 to 3 days and only occurs once a year. So pandas are only interested in meeting up with other pandas when the feeling strikes... BUUUUT they live far away from each other, so they have to find each other... ANNNND they are low on energy because of the lack of nutrition in their diet.... so they don't always find each other in that narrow window of time, and when they DO, they often still lack energy to actually mate. Oh yeah, also, they usually give birth to twins but typically only nurture the stronger one and let the weaker one die, so that's another mark against them in the ''propagating the species" category.
Scientists do everything they can to encourage pandas to mate in captivity, but it's not easy. They often seem to lose what little interest they have in mating while in captivity. Maybe they get sick of seeing each other? Zookeepers have literally shown pandas videos of other pandas mating to try to get them in the mood, or given male pandas drugs to, erm, encourage virility.
Artificial insemination is still a more reliable method. The patriarch of the panda family at the National Zoo, Tian Tian, has fathered three surviving cubs and a few cubs who did not survive, all through artificial insemination. He and his mate, Mei Xiang, have been given many opportunities to mate naturally and have attempted to do so... but in their NINETEEN YEARS together at the National Zoo, they have NEVER gotten the positioning correct to conceive. Possibly because it requires more athleticism than bamboo-crazed Tian Tian is capable of. (Tian Tian weighs 275 pounds, larger than male pandas in the wild and over 50 pounds heavier than his mate.) See, even when pandas eat enough bamboo to maintain energy and are living in the same exhibit, there's no guarantee of successful mating.
Despite all this, pandas are a well-known symbol of conservation and human efforts have helped to reverse some of the habitat loss and low reproduction rates of wild pandas. In 2016, they were reclassified from 'endangered' to 'vulnerable.' Jolly good show to the humans, but let's be real: these little dorks are not exactly pulling their own weight!