Try as we might, we cannot save these animals. You see, if platypi are mother nature's joke, giant pandas are her middle child. What we have here is an evolutionarily disadvantaged species.
The creatures were simply doomed to extinction to begin with. Large and unwieldy, they are easily spotted by stronger predators and unsavory humans.
Worse still, these creatures insist on eating a crop that is not particularly widespread which only further diminishes their chances for survival.
And finally, to add insult to injury, these creatures are not particularly fond of procreation. They lack the mighty rabbit's evolutionary advantage of simply, well, having babies like rabbits.
It is quite clear that the Great Panda, while interesting and beautiful, has reached a stage of technological obsolescence.