• I was just going through my normal routine: sleep, eat, wander, and sleep some more. I was starving, it being early and the morning. My eyes rolled to the horizon. The beautiful, hazy, pink and yellow sunrise lay on top of it. I smiled under my white fur and began to search for my breakfast.

    Lucky for me, I quickly stumbled upon a large bunch of bamboo chutes. I swatted at one with my large paw and grabbed it once it hit the ground. As I gnawed into the plant, my yellow teeth showed, but I didn't care. Pandas didn't care about stuff like that. To a human's point of view, I was chubby, but no one I knew seemed to care. Nor did I, for that matter.

    As I chewed, I had an odd feeling that today would be different. Not like the sleep before I wander different, but a life-changing different. I realized that I was right when I heard the cries of humans on the other side of our tranquil valley. I might have been slow, but I was fast enough to hide before I was in any human's sight.

    I heard a loud bang, then a thud. I couldn't understand their language, but I understood the cry of the panda that would never cry again. Now I was scared. I noticed more humans bring out two different, odd-looking objects. One seemed like a box with a shiny, jagged thing that spun and made a loud noise when the human pulled a string. The other was a sharp, shiny thing tied to a bamboo stalk. The human swung the thing tied to bamboo, and a tree fell to the ground.

    I gasped when something sharp dug into my side. I let out a loud cry of pain, then fell to the ground. As I laid there, bleeding, I realized that there was only one safe place in this cruel world. Heaven. And I was on my way there.

    Goodbye.


    Now I am your jacket you awful, heartless human. I hope you know how many lives were lost just to satisfy you. The next time you look at your panda fur coat, your chinchilla scarf, the deer head on your wall, or your bearskin rug, think about the torture and fear we have all gone through. Think about how we feel to lose in this war for survival, when we thought we were doing so well...