Podcast: should we save the panda?

by Rebecca Nesbit

With just five days to go until the Biology Week debate, ‘Do we need pandas? Choosing which species to save’, the votes on the Society of Biology website poll are swinging in favour of the panda. To help me decide which way to vote, I produced this podcast in which I interview three conservationists about conservation and the choices we make – everything from controlling non-native species to protecting them.

I will be live tweeting as @Society_Biology from the event on Monday night using the hashtag #pandadebate and will be taking questions to put to the panel. If you have any questions in advance, please add them to the comments below.  I’d also be very interested to hear your views on any of the issues I raised in the podcast, and those debated under my last blog post.

My podcast guests were:

Mark Avery, Zara Gladman and Matthew Hatchwell

About Rebecca Nesbit

Dr. Rebecca Nesbit is an ecologist, author, and science communicator with a PhD in ecology from the University of York, completed in collaboration with Rothamsted Research. She works as press officer at the Royal Society of Biology and has led projects in fisheries science, clean tech, and offshore renewables. Her writing explores science and ethics, including her books Tickets for the Ark and Is That Fish in Your Tomato?. She also worked on airport bee-detection systems and toured with Nobel laureates as part of the Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative.