China’s Chengdu Research Base of the Giant Panda Breeding has delivered to the internet the raw, addicting drug of 14 ADORABLE PANDA CUBS ALL IN ONE PLACE, AT THE SAME TIME.
Here, we know you want it, and we won’t keep you from it. The raw feed from China Central Television:
Again, again:
And if you’re looking for pictures, they’re only here and here and here and here and here and here and …
The Los Angeles Times, as a responsible news outlet, actually bothered to justify its posting of panda pics by putting some kind of text under them or on top of them or near them, we don’t care. The Times explains why it’s “so remarkable” to see 14 panda cubs, ranging from 1.5 pounds to 9 pounds, in one place:
The sight of 14 cubs in one place is striking not just for its overwhelming cuteness but because pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity. (It’s not so easy for them to breed in their natural habitat either — only about 1,600 are left in the wild, according to the most recent estimate from the World Wildlife Foundation.)
Among the difficulties is the fact that “pandas are generally solitary as adults,” according to the San Diego Zoo, which has a breeding program for giant pandas. If a female is getting ready to go into heat, she leaves scent marks to alert any males who happen to be passing by. But those males had better be in the right place at the right time — female pandas are “receptive to breeding” for only two or three days a year, the San Diego Zoo says.
That’s nice. But we know that most people don’t care how the drug gets made (is there a Walter White of panda breeding?). They just want what what they want and what they want is 14 BABY PANDAS NOW.
