system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I don't see why we should prevent pandas from going extinct. CMV.

From what I understand they subside almost exclusively on one food source (bamboo), have few mechanisms of self defence, don't particularly contribute anything amazing to the ecosystem, and furthermore have a very low rate of reproduction (panda viagara is still in development, clearly). If evolution itself is impeding them don't see why we should try to keep a sinking ship afloat.
gpt
I just replied to a similar CMV about this a few days ago. Pandas are a poster animal for the WWF and many other animal rights groups on the planet. We need the panda species to survive to inspire other humans to care about other things in life such as global pollution, and other potentially endangered animals. If the panda were to go extinct, people will look at the event and say that if groups such as the WWF(who we have given an ENORMOUS amount of money to) why should we waste money on other similarly futile efforts for other animals and for the climate and other issues.

Animals such as the Dodo and the White Rhino have gone extinct in the past, but society has mostly forgotten them because they were never widely publicized. Pandas on the other hand, are EVERY WHERE. If they were to fail as a species, the repercussions would be devastating for these wildlife groups. Even if some people were motivated 'not to let it happen again', most people would feel that it was a lost cause and decide to let nature take its course, just as you are implying it should. Even if a small, temporary spike in donations to these groups was seen in the wake, it could never balance the vast amount of money already invested into pandas as a species, all of which would then be lost.

Additionally, allowing pandas to die out would wreck havok on the ecosystem they're native to. They are the primary form of reproduction for the bamboo plant(by digesting, and relocating seeds), which is, in and of itself, home to many insect/bird populations. The panda is the key to making that entire ecosystem flourish. They don't have self defense mechanisms because they never needed them. They were established, evolutionary, as essential to the ecosystem they lived in, and never had any serious competitors or predators until humans came along.

The reason the Panda species is struggling is NOT evolution. Humans, as with many species lately, have extensively hunted pandas in the past for their pelts, and deforested much of the bamboo habitat they used to live in for the strong, unique wood it contains. Pandas on their own flourished as an essential member of their ecosystem, and their evolutionary lack of a defense mechanism is proof of that. It wasn't until human involvement that panda's existence was threatened. It is correcting this human error that will make it possible for us to find the courage to correct other, more threatening human errors such as pollution. If we can't save the pandas from ourselves, how are we going to save us from ourselves?