Terrible article. It's not even that this guy might not have a case but here's the thing - but while he spends so much time bashing pandas as zoo exhibits, not much does he himself bring up even one of these so-called 'ugly species' that are so under-represented. All he's doing is contributing to the problem he's so angry about. All that said, I'm wholly against the 'rent-a-panda' business myself, not that I haven't spent money to see giant pandas in a zoo.
note that the article is written basically as an advertorial for his book, in which he probably does talk about the "ugly" animals. The panda is just his hook for getting people to notice. There's nothing heretical about the argument itself, and it is hardly a new one which he came up with himself, but the obvious problem in this particular case is that hardly anyone reading that article is actually going to go get the book, especially if he writes books as badly as he does newspaper articles, so most readers aren't really going to end up any the wiser than they had been before. All they are going to take away from it is "pandas cost money and they're not worth saving".
Well, he does have a point: the sums invested in and extracted from, especially by China, the "Giant Panda Business" have become quite disproportionate and should be discussed.
@Chlidonias: That's what I figured. I believe I read another article by him in the past which was equally bland. @Batto: That's an absolutely valid point, though poorly articulated in the article. My personal opinion is I don't blame zoos for wanting to exhibit or conserve pandas as much as the PRC for being so possessive of the species, not that it isn't their right.
