27.Oct

October 27th, 2016

Panda. Panda. Panda, panda, panda, panda, panda.

EDITOR:	Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

In his song 'Panda', Desiigner, the rapper likens a car, the BMW X6 to a panda - 'Black X6 phantom, White X6 look like a panda.'

The song was a global hit, and even sampled by Kanye West on his album, 'The Life of Pablo'. But irony of ironies, the White X6 which is likened to the panda, might signal the end of the world's cutest animal. Not directly, of course, but a new report compiled by the Living Planet Index shows that by 2020, the world's wild animal population may plummet to as low as one-third of their original sizes.

Between 1970-2012, global animal populations in the world dropped by 585 - and various causes have been used to describe why: Changing temperatures, the destruction of natural habitats, poaching and pollution.

While the report is striking in its conclusions, some have been reserved about its headline figure. The Guardian reported: “It is broadly right, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts,” said Prof Stuart Pimm, at Duke University in the US, adding that looking at particular groups, such as birds, is more precise.

If the report is to be believed directly, then we are in big trouble - however, conservation efforts have recently been paying off, with the Giant Panda recently taken off endangered lists. Saying that, it does still kind of look like a car.