Zoo Welfare System Corrupts Panda Mom

Live Broadcast Of Panda Birth Cancelled After It Emerges The Mother Was Faking Her Pregnancy

Wow, we even get a hot tub!

The broadcast was planned after giant panda Ai Hin began showing signs of pregnancy at the Chengdu Breeding Research Centre in China, AFP reports state news agency Xinhua as saying.

Pandas thought to be pregnant receive 24-hour care, more food, and live in an air-conditioned single room.

Wu Kongju, who works at the centre, told Xinhua: “They also receive more buns, fruits and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life.”

It is thought Ai Hin may have experienced a “phantom pregnancy”.

The Chinese news agency says that bears have been known to display signs of being pregnant after becoming aware of the preferential treatment.

That's pretty clever for a bear to figure out it's being favored because it's keepers suspect it's pregnant. It makes you wonder about our definition of intelligence. Maybe we shouldn't let them go instinct after all.

I've cited this before with respect to the corrupting influence of welfare, Optimal Foraging Theory:

Optimal foraging theory is an idea in ecology based on the study of foraging behavior and states that organisms forage in such a way as to maximize their net energy intake per unit time. In other words, they behave in such a way as to find, capture and consume food containing the most calories while expending the least amount of time possible in doing so. The understanding of many ecological concepts such as adaptation, energy flow and competition hinges on the ability to comprehend what food items animals select, and why.

When you extend the idea to humanity, you can immediately see how a welfare system balloons from a system intended to help the poor who cannot take care of themselves to a system covering a large fraction of the child bearing population.  It's not even immoral, it's an instinctive, basic biological adaption to resources. Just because you get those resources at the welfare office instead of clubbing a bear doesn't change the basic situation.