Eating and reproduction are two very important things for any animal. One can keep itself alive, and the other can allow its genes to be passed on. To some extent, reproduction is sometimes more important than eating.

Because some animals can give up their own lives in order to reproduce, such as male shrews living in Australia, they will die in large numbers during the breeding period to provide living space and resources for their offspring.

There are also male anglerfish that live in the deep sea. After meeting a female, they become parasitic on others, and most of their body organs, including the brain, will degenerate.

There is also sexual cannibalism in the insect world. In order to reproduce their own offspring, males are willing to risk being eaten by females. There are many insects like this, such as mantises, golden spiders, red-back spiders, etc.

There is no turning back for love, and life is meaningless to them except for the reproduction of offspring.

In addition to these animals that will be loved even to death, there are many animals in nature that have very strong reproductive capabilities and sometimes become invasive species that occupy other ecosystems.

For example, five or six rabbits can multiply to 10 billion in a few decades, turning Australia upside down. As long as they don't sleep, they reproduce except for eating. It is difficult to control their numbers without human intervention. live.

Asian carp are also showing a proliferation trend in lakes and lakes in the United States. It can be seen that any animal will madly expand its race as long as it has the opportunity.

But there are exceptions. Some animals, with the help of humans, provide them with the best living conditions, and they still live as endangered species. The typical representative is the giant panda.

The fact that giant pandas have become an endangered species is definitely related to the initial destruction, hunting and habitat encroachment of humans on their living environment, but it is also inseparable from their extremely low reproductive efficiency.

The average lifespan of giant pandas in the wild is about 20 years, and those in captivity can live up to 30 years. Their mature age in the wild is 4 to 6 years old, and those in captivity are later, about 8 years old.

Panda breeding also has a fixed estrus period, usually from March to May, but their estrus time is very short, only 2 to 3 days. After this time, female pandas will no longer have estrus. Desire to mate.

If you want to reproduce, you need to wait for the next year. So it's very urgent.

But male cats, like other male animals, live solitary lives. They will only attract each other during the breeding season. This will cause the problem if the wild population is too small and the group is divided. If so, it would be very difficult to even meet in a short period of time.

It will also cause more inbreeding, causing some invisible harmful genes to be purified, increasing the chance of death and deformity of the cubs.

So if humans do not interfere with the reproduction of the panda race, it is certain that they will become extinct soon.

Also, pandas’ reproductive capacity, fertility, and cubs’ ability to withstand risks are all very low.

Pandas are a reproductive mechanism where multiple males compete for females. One female can attract several males, and these males will fight to gain priority for mating.

Then they enter the courtship ceremony and mating. During the short breeding period, the male will mate with the female several times. The male will also look for other females again, and the female will mate with multiple males.

However, the pregnancy rate of pandas is relatively low, and in many cases it is in vain. Even if it succeeds, a female panda will only give birth to a baby every two years;

Because panda babies are about Born in August, the whole body was red when born, and the average weight was only more than 100 grams. This is very different from the adult panda. The cubs who saw the panda for the first time could not believe that the cub weighed more than 100 kilograms, or even 200 kilograms. Descendants of multi-pound animals.

As you can imagine, it is very difficult to raise panda cubs like human cubs, and they only take 56 days to unfold. It has eyes and can only crawl when it is 3 months old. It can be seen that it is a little stronger than human cubs.

So the survival rate of panda cubs is very low. The female needs to guard it every step of the way and give it the greatest protection and care. A panda cub will follow its mother for more than a year, or even 2 years. when.

Only after the cubs leave their mother will the female accept the male's courtship again.

And pandas are not like other animals, where there are several or even a dozen in a litter. They sometimes have twins, but the female usually only chooses one of them that looks stronger to take care of, and the other one. Resigned to fate.

This is the breeding of giant pandas in the wild. Although males will not lose interest in breeding in the wild, they are much calmer and less concerned than other animals.

And because of the reduction in their population caused by human persecution, coupled with poor reproductive ability and difficulty in raising cubs, pandas are bound to become extinct.

This is why humans interfere with their reproduction.

Panda mating in the zoo

It stands to reason that as long as the animals are provided with superior living conditions, their numbers will increase rapidly. However, pandas have been national treasures for decades. The current population size is only over 2,000.

There are only more than 600 pandas in captivity. The reason is that when they are kept in captivity, males have very low interest in breeding. Not even interested.

The reason is that in the past, people raised giant pandas separately, leading to the critical breeding period before letting the male and female meet. However, the male is very picky. He will not mate with a female whose smell is unfamiliar, that is, there is no wild. The male panda has no interest in that set of rituals.

A study published in 2015 showed that pandas are more likely to mate with a mate of their own choice. Rather than just randomly bringing men and women together, their love also needs to have a sense of ritual.

In order to increase the interest of male pandas, biologists will also show them "panda movies" during the breeding season, hoping to stimulate their nature, but the effect of this approach is not very obvious.

Drugs are even used to increase male interest during the breeding season, but the effect is not very good. Therefore, scientists personally share the "pressure" for male pandas and use artificial insemination to reproduce offspring.

In 2009, the first artificial insemination of a giant panda successfully gave birth to a cub.

In addition to the pressure of male disinterest, the breeding of captive pandas will also face the threat of a limited gene pool. With only so many pandas, it is certainly difficult to avoid the risk of inbreeding. If genetic diversity is poor, breeding will still be Severe genetic diseases arise, leading to population extinction.

So scientists will obtain panda sperm in the wild and freeze it to increase the gene pool of captive pandas. The frozen sperm can be stored for decades and can be shared with zoos around the world.

Due to human protection measures for giant pandas, although their population is still small, it is increasing every year.

Summary:

It is often said that male giant pandas do not like to mate only in human captivity. Although they are not as good as other animals in the wild, they can guarantee the race. of reproduction. The current number of giant pandas in the wild has increased to 1,864.

Furthermore, due to the specialization of female pandas’ reproductive capabilities and behavior in raising offspring, the reproduction of the panda population has been restricted, and the ability of the entire population to resist risks has been reduced.

When the population decreases, it will inevitably lead to irreversible extinction in the wild.