Panda Patent

All of the pandas in the world are owned by China.

This is a fact.  They all come from China and China will not allow anyone to take one of their pandas anywhere without their permission.

This is not, on the face of it, unreasonable.  Pandas are an endangered species and it is China’s responsibility to ensure that we have a sustainable population somewhere.   (Actually it is a “conservation reliant vulnerable species”, meaning, not quite endangered but not quite safe.)  It is very difficult to get pandas to mate in captivity.  They’ve even tried the panda version of viagra.  In the wild, the female panda will often have two cubs of which she will select one to live.   Let’s see that one in Disney.  They are also working on methods of artificial insemination, and have just had their first success.

According to Wikipedia:  “By 1984, however, pandas were no longer given as gifts. Instead, the PRC began to offer pandas to other nations only on 10-year loans, under terms including a fee of up to US $1,000,000 per year and a provision that any cubs born during the loan are the property of the PRC.”

Why are any cubs born to these pandas the “property” of the People’s Republic of China?  Because if you don’t agree to those terms, you don’t get the pandas.  Since when does ownership of a living creature entitle one to claim future progeny?  Since other nations agreed to these obscene terms because they just couldn’t bear to be without the adorable panda in their zoo collections.