There's Such a Thing as Being Too Cute

The book I escaped into last night was "The Lady and the Panda," Vicki Croke's bio on Ruth Harkness, a New York party girl who, when her explorer husband died, went to China to carry out his mission and brought back the first live panda to the US in 1936. She started up a panda fad that almost proved fatal to the species.

Harkness had an interest in preserving the rare animal and providing proper care to the captives. But her contemporaries, the "gentleman explorers" of the era, were so beguiled by fame they couldn't care less whether they brought back live animals or pelts. Pandas were just too cute for their own good, and every zoo had to have at least a pair. Due to the effects of numerous live captures (back then they were easier to catch than to keep alive), war and forest depletion, the giant panda population was decimated.

Maria Bello starred in a film for iMax with the lackluster title "China: The Panda Adventure," based on the book, released in 2001. See the trailer here.

And I guess this is the perfect time to share a slideshow I made of photos my friend Janet sent me last year, of a Chinese panda farm -- these babies are being (hopefully) raised to be released back into the wild. There are only about 1,000 wild pandas left in the highlands of China.