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The Last Panda
Dependent on a shrinking supply of bamboo, hunted mercilessly for its pelt, and hostage to profiteering schemes once in captivity, the panda is on the brink of extinction. Here, acclaimed naturalist George Schaller uses his great evocative powers, and the insight gained by four and a half years in the forests of the Wolong and Tangjiahe panda reserves, to document the plight of these mysterious creatures and to awaken the human compassion urgently needed to save them.
"No scientist is better at letting the rest of us in on just how the natural world works; no poet sees the world with greater clarity or writes about it with more grace. . . . Anyone who genuinely cares for wildlife cannot help being grateful to Schaller—both for his efforts to understand the panda and for the candor with which he reports what has gone so badly wrong in the struggle to save it from extinction."—Geoffrey C. Ward, New York Times Book Review
"Schaller's book is a unique mix of natural history and the politics of conservation, and it makes for compelling reading. . . . Having been in giant panda country myself, I found some of the descriptions of the animals and habitats breathtaking. Schaller describes the daily routines and personalities of the giant pandas he studied (as well as their fates thereafter) as though they were his blood relatives. . . . Schaller's brilliant presentation of the complexities of conservation makes his book a milestone for the conservation movement."—Devra G. Kleiman, Washington Post Book World
"George Schaller's most soulful work, written in journal style with many asides about a creature who evolved only two to three million years ago (about the same time as humans). . . . Here, conservation biology confronts an evil that grinds against hope and shatters the planet's diversity. Written with hope."— Whole Earth Catalog
"A nicely crafted blend of wildlife observation and political-cultural analysis. . . . The Last Panda is a sad chronicle of our failure, so far, to stem the decline of the animal that may be the most beloved on the planet."—Donald Dale Jackson, Smithsonian
"No scientist is better at letting the rest of us in on just how the natural world works; no poet sees the world with greater clarity or writes about it with more grace. . . . Anyone who genuinely cares for wildlife cannot help being grateful to Schaller—both for his efforts to understand the panda and for the candor with which he reports what has gone so badly wrong in the struggle to save it from extinction."—Geoffrey C. Ward, New York Times Book Review
"Schaller's book is a unique mix of natural history and the politics of conservation, and it makes for compelling reading. . . . Having been in giant panda country myself, I found some of the descriptions of the animals and habitats breathtaking. Schaller describes the daily routines and personalities of the giant pandas he studied (as well as their fates thereafter) as though they were his blood relatives. . . . Schaller's brilliant presentation of the complexities of conservation makes his book a milestone for the conservation movement."—Devra G. Kleiman, Washington Post Book World
"George Schaller's most soulful work, written in journal style with many asides about a creature who evolved only two to three million years ago (about the same time as humans). . . . Here, conservation biology confronts an evil that grinds against hope and shatters the planet's diversity. Written with hope."— Whole Earth Catalog
"A nicely crafted blend of wildlife observation and political-cultural analysis. . . . The Last Panda is a sad chronicle of our failure, so far, to stem the decline of the animal that may be the most beloved on the planet."—Donald Dale Jackson, Smithsonian
312 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 1993
9 people are currently reading
257 people want to read
About the author
George B. Schaller
47 books59 followersGeorge Beals Schaller (born 1933) is an American mammalogist, biologist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Born in Berlin, Schaller grew up in Germany, but moved to Missouri as a teen. He is vice president of Panthera Corporation and serves as chairman of their Cat Advisory Council along with renowned conservationist and Panthera CEO Alan Rabinowitz. Schaller is also a senior conservationist at the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
Schaller's work in conservation has resulted in the protection of large stretches of area in the Amazon, Brazil, the Hindu Kush in Pakistan, and forests in Southeast Asia. Due in part to Schaller's work, over 20 parks or preserves worldwide have been established, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Shey-Phoksundo National Park in Nepal, and the Changtang Nature Reserve in Tibet, one of the world's most significant wildlife refuges. At over 200,000 miles (320,000 km), the Chang Tang Nature Reserve was called "One of the most ambitious attempts to arrest the shrinkage of natural ecosystems," by The New York Times.
Schaller's work in conservation has resulted in the protection of large stretches of area in the Amazon, Brazil, the Hindu Kush in Pakistan, and forests in Southeast Asia. Due in part to Schaller's work, over 20 parks or preserves worldwide have been established, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Shey-Phoksundo National Park in Nepal, and the Changtang Nature Reserve in Tibet, one of the world's most significant wildlife refuges. At over 200,000 miles (320,000 km), the Chang Tang Nature Reserve was called "One of the most ambitious attempts to arrest the shrinkage of natural ecosystems," by The New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 29, 2017
Mr. Schaller is an experienced animal conservationist in the world. He has extensive experience conducting field research. This book is his account on the preservation of Panda. He was the head of WWF's panda project in China in 1980s. He spent about five years setting up the Wolong research center with Chinese government. Wolong is now a listed world heritage site. It is one of the major habitats for giant pandas.
The book was written in 1993 so it might be outdated. However, it gives a great account on the first initiatives taken to save this beautiful species. WWF selected panda as its logo, so it seemed the organization needed to do something to help this endangered animal. Pandas have magic that would melt everyone's heart. Therefore, it's heartbreaking to see them disappearing due to human's activities.
After China opened its door to outside world in 1978, reforms were underway, including animal preservation. Some people called for big actions to save pandas. Chinese government invited WWF to start the program together. They went to Sichuan and began surveys. They encountered many obstacles during the whole course. Most of the difficulty came from communication with Chinese authorities. China just went through decades of bad lives and mutual understanding between China and rest of the world was not enough. Traditional Chinese values made field research more difficult. Surprisingly, this book put a lot of contents discussing how to deal with Chinese people, especially government officials. It may not be accurate today, but some of the 'essence' seems still applicable. It's an extra benefits (knowledge) I get reading this book.
The writing style is like a personal diary. Schaller chronicled his stay in China. He introduced detailed knowledge about pandas. He also discussed about many interesting facts and observations. For example, are small panda and giant panda relative or different species? ; the difference and similarity of pandas and bears.
Schaller also talks about some disturbing or alarming events. The death of bamboos caused panics, making many people worry pandas would starve to death. Misleading news exacerbated the worries, but the major crisis was actually panda poaching. In just five years, several pandas which were the subjects of the research were killed. The hunting kept worsening. Chinese people's attitude was to catch more wild pandas and put them into captives. They thought humans care would help pandas better. This contradict author's belief, which the ultimate goal of conservation was to protect the habitats and returned pandas to their natural homes.
Overall, 'The Last Panda' is a thought provoking book. The title was meant to mourn pandas seemingly doomed future. Fortunately, the status quo is not so bad. I hope this lovely species will survive long into the future. They are truly the treasure of mankind.
The book was written in 1993 so it might be outdated. However, it gives a great account on the first initiatives taken to save this beautiful species. WWF selected panda as its logo, so it seemed the organization needed to do something to help this endangered animal. Pandas have magic that would melt everyone's heart. Therefore, it's heartbreaking to see them disappearing due to human's activities.
After China opened its door to outside world in 1978, reforms were underway, including animal preservation. Some people called for big actions to save pandas. Chinese government invited WWF to start the program together. They went to Sichuan and began surveys. They encountered many obstacles during the whole course. Most of the difficulty came from communication with Chinese authorities. China just went through decades of bad lives and mutual understanding between China and rest of the world was not enough. Traditional Chinese values made field research more difficult. Surprisingly, this book put a lot of contents discussing how to deal with Chinese people, especially government officials. It may not be accurate today, but some of the 'essence' seems still applicable. It's an extra benefits (knowledge) I get reading this book.
The writing style is like a personal diary. Schaller chronicled his stay in China. He introduced detailed knowledge about pandas. He also discussed about many interesting facts and observations. For example, are small panda and giant panda relative or different species? ; the difference and similarity of pandas and bears.
Schaller also talks about some disturbing or alarming events. The death of bamboos caused panics, making many people worry pandas would starve to death. Misleading news exacerbated the worries, but the major crisis was actually panda poaching. In just five years, several pandas which were the subjects of the research were killed. The hunting kept worsening. Chinese people's attitude was to catch more wild pandas and put them into captives. They thought humans care would help pandas better. This contradict author's belief, which the ultimate goal of conservation was to protect the habitats and returned pandas to their natural homes.
Overall, 'The Last Panda' is a thought provoking book. The title was meant to mourn pandas seemingly doomed future. Fortunately, the status quo is not so bad. I hope this lovely species will survive long into the future. They are truly the treasure of mankind.
September 23, 2012
4.25 stars
George Schaller is a biologist and conservationist who has studied various wildlife in their natural settings. In this book, he gives us an account of the time he spent in China in the early 1980s studying the panda.
I really liked this. I didn't know much about the panda and of course, a portion of this book was spent on the pandas he met in the wild while he was there, but a significant amount of the book was also spent detailing the cultural and political hurdles of the project coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund, along with the Chinese government and a few other Chinese organizations, none of which seemed to coordinate very well or agree on a whole lot. There were also plenty of frustrations around the people who were sent to work at the research station, many of whom didn't want to be there. So, there was a lot of politics in the book, as well (which kept my interest more than I might have expected). It is nonfiction, which does tend to take a little longer to get through, but if you have an interest in wildlife and/or endangered species, it is well worth the read.
George Schaller is a biologist and conservationist who has studied various wildlife in their natural settings. In this book, he gives us an account of the time he spent in China in the early 1980s studying the panda.
I really liked this. I didn't know much about the panda and of course, a portion of this book was spent on the pandas he met in the wild while he was there, but a significant amount of the book was also spent detailing the cultural and political hurdles of the project coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund, along with the Chinese government and a few other Chinese organizations, none of which seemed to coordinate very well or agree on a whole lot. There were also plenty of frustrations around the people who were sent to work at the research station, many of whom didn't want to be there. So, there was a lot of politics in the book, as well (which kept my interest more than I might have expected). It is nonfiction, which does tend to take a little longer to get through, but if you have an interest in wildlife and/or endangered species, it is well worth the read.
August 4, 2014
The Last Panda is a great example of what I would call 'conservation literature'. It breaks away from the tradition of purely exclaiming the myriad ways in which wildlife is wonderful instead focusing on the difficulties and frustrations of trying to implement a real conservation program for an endangered species. George Schaller minces no words in his assessment of the various agencies trying to protect the Giant Panda in China, each with its own set of objectives and ideals. The book is a refreshing albeit disheartening account of how protecting wildlife requires a trapeze act balancing natural habitat requirements of an animal with the political necessities of the establishment. Definitely worth a read.
May 29, 2024
This was published in 1993, and Tibet Wild was published in 2012. Here, he was working in China for the first time (from what I understand), and just getting used to the sometimes frustrating and hard to navigate ways of working (bureaucracy, drinking tea and baijiu, what one should and should not say in meetings, public security bureaus, and so on). He was more sour and disenchanted with how politics affects conservation in Giant Panda National Park and the entire Chinese education system (or at least voiced his frustrations more) in this book than in Tibet Wild. It’s interesting to see the change between these two books (of course, there are many other factors besides personal growth including difference in time, history, culture, and conservation status in Sichuan and Qinghai/Tibet).
Highlights
* Days in the field, working the muddy bamboo forests of western sichuan
* WWF and China miscommunication and poor coordination
* international panda trade and panda diplomacy is often bad for the pandas
* what meetings look like in china: tea in porcelain cups, overstuffed chairs at low tables (it’s a bit different now, with wooden chairs and a rectangular high table, but similar vibes!)
* Chinese people live in fear, with their imagination and initiative stifled; they are risk-averse and do not try to excel
* Chinese education system does not train imaginative biologists and ecologists
* Mao’s four errors: encouraging unlimited population growth; great leap forward and steel and iron production; promoting grain production (pastureland plowed, forests cut down for grain); Cultural revolution
* Working differences between China and the US: US emphasizes freedom, China emphasizes hierarchy and respect. US emphasizes facts, China emphasis values
* “In work, results are usually in inverse proportion to the number of people doing it. “
* It’s often just a local level (often irresponsible) decision to bring panda from ild into captivity
* Gov’t buying products like musk has led to exacerbation in poaching
* Renting pandas isn’t sustainable right now because China should focus on maintaining its captive population first, and too many breeding age pandas are sent away without a mate due to poor coordination and regulation
* pandas were seldom represented in art before 1950s!
* Deforestation and habitat loss are a bigger immediate threat to pandas than inbeeding leading to slow genetic deterioration
* “When three people walk in the forest, Hu Jinchu confided, it is best to seek the middle, for the person in front gets bitten by ticks and the person in back by leeches.”
* “Before leaving, I made little pilgrimages. I ascended the mountainside to the tent at 4X where Kay and I had spent many nights monitoring pandas; others would now do these routine tasks. Such locations remain fixed in the mind, and I would always remember the curves of the trail, the outline of the hills. The fact that I looked at the spot with nostalgia was a reminder that one tends to complain of discomfort but relish the memory of hardship.”
* Conservation issues are complicated, e.g. on the fact of relocation: “I had been told that within a year or two all villagers would be removed from the reserve, the families scattered and absorbed into new communities. Did he know that he might soon be uprooted? I hoped that he could die here in the security and peace of his old home, yet I also admired the government for its efforts to rehabilitate the reserve.”
Highlights
* Days in the field, working the muddy bamboo forests of western sichuan
* WWF and China miscommunication and poor coordination
* international panda trade and panda diplomacy is often bad for the pandas
* what meetings look like in china: tea in porcelain cups, overstuffed chairs at low tables (it’s a bit different now, with wooden chairs and a rectangular high table, but similar vibes!)
* Chinese people live in fear, with their imagination and initiative stifled; they are risk-averse and do not try to excel
* Chinese education system does not train imaginative biologists and ecologists
* Mao’s four errors: encouraging unlimited population growth; great leap forward and steel and iron production; promoting grain production (pastureland plowed, forests cut down for grain); Cultural revolution
* Working differences between China and the US: US emphasizes freedom, China emphasizes hierarchy and respect. US emphasizes facts, China emphasis values
* “In work, results are usually in inverse proportion to the number of people doing it. “
* It’s often just a local level (often irresponsible) decision to bring panda from ild into captivity
* Gov’t buying products like musk has led to exacerbation in poaching
* Renting pandas isn’t sustainable right now because China should focus on maintaining its captive population first, and too many breeding age pandas are sent away without a mate due to poor coordination and regulation
* pandas were seldom represented in art before 1950s!
* Deforestation and habitat loss are a bigger immediate threat to pandas than inbeeding leading to slow genetic deterioration
* “When three people walk in the forest, Hu Jinchu confided, it is best to seek the middle, for the person in front gets bitten by ticks and the person in back by leeches.”
* “Before leaving, I made little pilgrimages. I ascended the mountainside to the tent at 4X where Kay and I had spent many nights monitoring pandas; others would now do these routine tasks. Such locations remain fixed in the mind, and I would always remember the curves of the trail, the outline of the hills. The fact that I looked at the spot with nostalgia was a reminder that one tends to complain of discomfort but relish the memory of hardship.”
* Conservation issues are complicated, e.g. on the fact of relocation: “I had been told that within a year or two all villagers would be removed from the reserve, the families scattered and absorbed into new communities. Did he know that he might soon be uprooted? I hoped that he could die here in the security and peace of his old home, yet I also admired the government for its efforts to rehabilitate the reserve.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2009
Excellent. He shows that it is always worth fighting to save endangered species.
Want to read
August 25, 2010Yuri loved this book.
August 28, 2016
Great book by a man who knows how to meld people, animals and conservation
November 5, 2021
被喜欢是一种无法承受之重，如果可以，不妨放手，还这些可爱精灵以自由，真要干预，那就严惩盗猎者-死刑
April 6, 2017
The book makes interesting reading material for many reasons. The plight of the Giant Panda, which lives only in scattered bamboo forests in southwestern China and rapidly is being squeezed out by human encroachment, is an important and worthwhile subject. The book contains some fine nature writing describing the panda, its habitat, and the other creatures that share that habitat. The book also opens a window into political and social conditions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when China opened itself to the world and the World Wildlife Fund agreed to sponsor research (led by Schaller) on the panda. The Chinese bureaucracy proved to be more interested in capturing and breeding pandas for its "rent a panda" program, which generated publicity and monetary payments for the regime, than in maintaining the panda as a viable species in the wild. One wonders whether China has changed much since then, though it is now a far richer and more powerful country. The book takes the story only through 1993, when it was published. One hopes that conditions for the wild panda have improved since then, but I fear this is not the case.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews