Pandas.

I have to imagine a panda giving birth is similar to sneezing while on your period. You do a curious little head tilt wondering "did that dislodge my tampalamp?" You do a little butt wiggle checking to ensure everything is still snuggly fit down there, and once satisfied move on a-ok. These permanently endangered moronic animals are so much bigger than their babies that crushing them is one of the bigger risks to the babies 30% survival rate. (Babies are 1/900th of their mothers size compared to a human baby being 1/20th of the mother)  

Now I am all for animals survival and thrive-al that I don't mind taxes paying large sums of money to protect them. While at the beach I don't love that half of the beach is roped off for piping plovers, the ever declining beach bird, but I appreciate and support the efforts to increase their population. Primarily because I don't think just because I can do something, say ruin their habitat with a hotel, doesn't mean it should be done. The more of the earth you destroy, the less there is to enjoy. Additionally losing various species is seldom as risk free as just no longer having them for your viewing pleasure. They help maintain balance in the eco-system (see Yellowstone wolves) and that is vital to our well-being. 

So let's protect the pandas, plovers, polar bears, snakes, lions, and even those stupid salamanders that are protected in West Virginia where groups of cocky ass volunteers sneer "uh this trail is closed because we are building a log I mean bridge to walk on so salamanders aren't squished." 

"Ok Tree Beard, how long is your log resting on the ground going to take?"

"Weeks."

Weeks later you return and their is a halved log on the ground with a little notch on the underside so a salamander and walk under it. You can get a kitchen remodel in less time but again I support the animals. Sometimes begrudgingly but I do.  

The lengths people go through to protect pandas though I think is the most extra. Aside from their evolutionary desire to no longer exist as exhibited by their lack of desire to mate, they mate about as often as smart couples,  they don't even recognize when you take their baby. I watched a video utterly bemused as the panda mama holds her baby, adorable, then is handed a bowl of honey water. She is distracted immediately and the keeper takes the baby and replaces it with her other baby cub. Pandas tend to have twins, or a heavy flow tampon if you will, and generally only pick one baby to take care of. To hedge this panda keepers swap babies ten times per day so the mama always has a baby with her, they just switch it up as to which baby she is holding and feeding. It's hysterical to think this panda is so into her sugar water that you can get away with 10 cub swaps and she's none the wiser. Just licking her baby thinking "wow Lilly got a penis...weird" then keeps licking. An hour later "oh I guess it wasn't a penis, maybe it was a twig... holy shit is that sugar water?" *drops baby and starts drinking.*

So my boyfriend is a conservation biologist and I do support his work, I don't always [never] want to hear about it because it can be dry [insanely boring], but I know it is for a good cause. Yay soil health [I think he does that, honestly I zone out]. But when reading about pandas and all the effort I just can't help thinking about what it'd be like to date a panda conservationist. "Hey babe how was work?" "Oh it was great, Tian Tian is ovulating for today only, so I drugged Xing Xing and used the anal probe because as you know pandas have one of the smallest penises to size ratio to get him rowdy and produce a fresh semen sample. Then I knocked out Tian Tian , she was in her tree, avoiding rape, and inseminated her right on up. Hopefully in 2-6 months because it varies she will pop out a cub or two and we can frequently kidnap them and feed them for 6 months to ensure she doesn't smoosh it or just stop feeding them." "Oh that's cool, I did my expense reports today."

This just proves the effort people will go through to protect cute things. Too bad soil is just sort of brown and clumpy. Maybe that's why Breast Cancer gets so much attention...

Side note: Donate money to worthy charities like Alzheimers Association, Cancer Reasearch, NOT breast cancer because that charity is rated super freaking low and doesn't do much research at all, and of course the Animal Welfare Institute.