A better understanding of how to get them to breed in captivity has been a big part of growing the population. I guess bootstrapping a population to be used for meat would be wildly unpopular, but it could probably be done in a way that didn't have much impact on the wild population or captive population that is used for conservation.
Which I'm not arguing it is a good idea, just pointing out that growing the population partly involved figuring out better panda husbandry, which is the same knowledge you need to produce meat.
Yeah, a good example would be bison. They almost went extinct, and there are only a few thousands of wild bison, and yet bison meat is commercially produced.
Oh I agree that it wouldn't be a very interesting enterprise as far as making money, I just think you could do it without having much negative impact on the conservation efforts.
