The Last Panda

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 show more 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. show less

Well written, fascinating but depressing. How do you save Pandas? Capture them, store them in concrete prison cells and maintain them with low-wage untrained caretakers.