Ruth Harkless, who calls herself "Mrs. Panda", actually almost led to the extinction of the giant panda by her actions. In 1936, she took a giant panda from Sichuan and cleverly disguised it as a pug and named it Suri. In this way, she managed to evade customs and bring the panda back to the United States.
With this panda, Ruth made a huge profit. After her first taste, she returned to China the following year and used the same tactics to steal a giant panda again. However, due to a lack of proper knowledge of rearing, the two pandas died soon after. Their remains were even made into taxidermy and toured in the United States. Ruth was thus considered a hero by some Americans.
Her actions sparked a panda poaching frenzy in Europe and the United States. Countless adventurers have flocked to China to acquire pandas by all means, whether stealing, robbing, or hunting. This has led to a sharp decline in the number of pandas, with wild pandas almost on the verge of extinction.
It was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that the giant panda was listed as a national first-class protected animal, and their population began to gradually recover. However, the initiator of all this tragedy was Ruth Harkless, the first to steal a panda from China. Ironically, such a person who has done great harm to the panda population is known as "Mrs. Panda".