Great animals? Pfff... I know insects that are more impotant than those useless lump of furs! This is just natural selection at work, don't get emotionnal. Pandas are former meat eater who turned to an all bamboo diet when they don't have the digestive tract for! The are VERY inneficient eater because of that, forced to consume tons of bamboos to cover for what nutrience they could get out of a friggin' squirrel.
The only reason people care is because they are cute. Cuteness is not a reason to protect an animal over another. The amazon forest is losing amphibians and insects left or right but nobody cares...when one little baby seal is killed because its specie is overhunting cods... the cute seal wins over the ugly cod.
GAH! Hypocrites, all of them.