60 Minutes - Sunday, October 27, 2019

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Presidential candidate Joe Biden talks to Norah O'Donnell about the 2020 race to the White House -- and revisits his October 2015 interview -- where he said he would NOT run for president in 2016. Nearly three years after California legalized marijuana, the profit outlook for this budding business looks cloudy. Sharyn Alfonsi reports. A partnership between superpowers is helping to save giant pandas from the brink of extinction. Scott Pelley has the story. Those stories on tonight's "60 Minutes." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. The Democratic Party has had Jack Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. This is your third run for president. Why Joe Biden? We need somebody who on day one knows exactly what to do, can command the world stage. No one wonders whether I know a great deal about these issues in foreign policy and domestic policy. There's things I've done. President Trump has said publicly,

Joe Biden and his son are stone cold corrupt. And chances are he's watching this interview. Anything you want to say to him? Yeah, Mr. President, release your tax returns. Let's see how straight you are. Okay, old buddy. It's harvest season for California's $11 billion cash crop, marijuana. Wow.

But to understand its problems, you have to get high. See all those shiny straight things? Those are all marijuana growers. There's so much marijuana being grown in the state that there is a massive surplus. We found a lot of it is being smuggled east to states where it's yet to be legalized. A 300-pound load stopped in Missouri, 800 pounds in Idaho, 3,400 pounds in Texas. Did this all happen too fast? Oh, my goodness. Of course it did. The panda is a curious bear.

In the last century, biologists didn't think it belonged in the bear family. Pandas don't hibernate, and though they're virtual vegetarians, they're born to be carnivores. They've been chewing bamboo in the high mountains of China for three million years. Today, they're being bred in captivity to be reintroduced into the wild. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm Anderson Cooper.

I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories and more tonight on 60 Minutes. What's your next adventure? Everyone deserves a chance to do what they love. Pacific Life helps you reach financial goals while you go after your personal ones. Plans change over time and your financial solutions can too. Pacific Life has a variety of financial solutions that can help you complement your life goals

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He has been leading the Democratic field for the 2020 presidential nomination, but the race is tightening. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have energized the young, progressive wing of the party and argue that Biden's policy proposals don't go far enough. But his most powerful and vocal opponent is the President of the United States, who is facing an impeachment inquiry over whether he pressured the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Biden and his son Hunter. We talked with Joe Biden at his home in Delaware earlier this week, where we covered a wide variety of topics, including why Democrats should be excited about voting for a candidate who is about to turn 77 years old. The Democratic Party has had Jack Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. This is your third run for president. Why Joe Biden?

Well, because I think, as I said, we need somebody who on day one knows exactly what to do, can command the world stage. No one wonders whether I know a great deal about these issues in foreign policy and domestic policy. They're things I've done. And that might be one of the criticisms, too, that you're offering essentially four more years of a Obama-like administration. Well, let me tell you something. I love the fact that all of a sudden the Democratic Party doesn't think Obama was that great a president. I find that fascinating. Some have asked, why hasn't President Obama endorsed you? You guys served together for eight years.

Because I want to earn this on my own. Did he offer to endorse you? No, we didn't even get there. I asked him not to. He said, okay. I think it's better. I think he thinks it's better for me. I have no doubt when I'm the nominee, he'll be out in the campaign trail for me.

I'm not going to change who I am. Today marks 99 days until the Iowa caucuses, the first Democratic contest. Despite his strength in the polls, Joe Biden tends not to draw a lot of young people to his campaign events, a problem some of his competitors don't have. Their opponents, because they're promising so much change, they seem to be igniting the Democratic base that turns out in the primary, younger voters. The fact of the matter is that if you take a look at who votes in these primaries, overwhelmingly people over the age of 50 who vote in these primaries. I want more young people engaged. I want them voting.

But the idea that this is the way in which it's going to change the age of 50 who vote in these primaries. I want more young people engaged. I want them voting. But the idea that this is the way in which it's going to change is by just making the most far-reaching assertions you can make. I mean, let's talk about Medicare for All. Do you think there's been any truth in advertising on that? It's going to raise taxes on middle-class people, not just wealthy people. You're talking about Elizabeth Warren. Well, I'm not only talking there's been any truth in advertising on that. It's going to raise taxes on middle class people, not just wealthy people. You're talking about Elizabeth Warren. Well, I'm not only talking about even Bernie acknowledges you've got to raise taxes. Elizabeth Warren says she's going to propose a wealth tax. Two cents on the dollar for every dollar over $50 million. She says that money can be used to improve teacher salaries, provide tuition free, public college, and wipe

out student debt. I don't oppose wealth tax. I propose changing the whole tax system. The tax I will put on the wealthy will, in fact, cost more than 2 percent because they're not going to be able to take a capital gain. They're going to pay at 40 percent like everybody else, 39.8 percent. You've said you would repeal all of Trump's tax cuts. But do you mean just for the wealthy or for the middle class, too? Because Trump did give the middle class a tax cut. Well, Trump gave a middle class tax cut that was negligible. The fact is that what we should be doing is making sure that the wealthy pay their fair share.

So making over how much per year? What's wealthy? Making over $400,000 a year, those tax cuts would be repealed and people making between $250,000 and $400,000, their tax rate would increase. But here's the deal. What the middle class people really care about is can they afford education? Can they afford their health care? I would take the money and I'd pay for the health care proposal I put forward. I'd pay for education. So there's their health care? I would take the money and I'd pay for the health care proposal I put forward. I'd pay for education. So there's a whole range of things that go directly to affect middle class people. We should be ashamed about that. The skirmishes within the Democratic Party have been overshadowed recently

by questions of foreign interference in the upcoming election. This past Monday, Facebook announced it removed fake Russian accounts on social media that attacked Joe Biden. The news broke the day before we spoke with Biden and his wife, Jill, who joined us for part of our interview. The Russians are targeting you. The Russians don't want me to be president, and Trump doesn't want me to be the nominee. There's certain things that have come across very, very clearly. I mean, how concerned are you about foreign interference in this election?

I'm very concerned about foreign interference beyond me. Everybody knows what's going on. Trump not only doesn't want to do anything about it, he's going out and asking for help. Come help me. Come help me defeat, keep Biden from being the nominee. He's perpetuating it. I mean...

How is he perpetuating it? Well, by encouraging them to, you know, to get involved in our elections. But President Trump says Russian interference is a hoax. He's an idiot on terms of saying that. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows it. Nobody doubts it. While Facebook removed the fake Russian accounts, it refused a request by Biden's campaign to take down political ads paid for by the Trump campaign, making claims that Biden says are not true. Joe Biden promised Ukraine a billion dollars if they fired the

prosecutor investigating his son's company. Facebook is running right now paid advertising by Trump that everybody knows is a flat lie. You know, I'm glad they brought the Russians down. Why not you bring down the lies that Trump is telling and everybody knows their lies? Are you concerned that the president saying this over and over again, his campaign ads saying over and over again, that people will start to believe it? He's attacking your integrity. Sure he is. But it's coming from a man with no integrity, so it helps. No, I sincerely mean it. I never thought I'd talk about a president this way.

In a statement to 60 Minutes, a White House spokesperson said President Trump takes election security seriously and has delivered both offensive sanctions and defensive hardening of our election security. Joe Biden and his son walking... And the president continues to argue there should be an investigation into Hunter Biden's work for a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma during the time his father was vice president and overseeing U.S. policy in Ukraine. Hunter Biden was reportedly paid $50,000 to $80,000 a month

for several years while serving on Burisma's board. Hunter said the only thing you said to him was, quote, I hope you know what you're doing. That's exactly right. He's a grown man. What I meant by that is, I hope you've thought this through. I hope you know exactly what you're doing here. Meaning what? That's all I meant. Nothing more than that, because I've never discussed my business or their business, my sons or daughters, and I've never discussed them because they know where I have to do my job and that's it. And they have to make their own judgments. Do you understand people say, Joe Biden, he's an experienced politician, statesman, knows the issues of Ukraine. Why didn't he just say to his son, this is one to take a pass on.

It may not look good. He was already on the board and he's a grown man. And it turns out he did not do a single thing wrong as everybody's investigated. President Trump has said publicly Joe Biden and his son are stone cold corrupt. And chances are he's watching this interview. Anything you want to say to him? Yeah, Mr. President, release your tax returns. Let's see how straight you are. Okay, old buddy, I put out 21 years of mine. So show us your tax returns. But what are you hiding?

You want to deal with corruption? Start to act like it. Release your tax returns or shut up. The general election is more than a year away. And Hunter was not too smart. But on the campaign trail, you wouldn't know it, listening to President Trump and his son Eric attack Hunter Biden at rallies, where crowds chant, lock him up. Are you sorry you dragged your family into this? No, I didn't. I'm not sorry. Look, we dragged them into it. I mean, they they came to us. You know, you have to run. They knew it was going to be rough. Do you believe President Trump's children have acted properly and avoided conflicts of interest? I wasn't raised to go after the children.

Their actions speak for themselves. I can just tell you this, that if I'm president, get elected president, my children are not going to have offices in the White House. My children are not going to sit in on cabinet meetings. What's improper about that? It's just simply improper because you should make it clear to the American public that everything you're doing is for them, for them. And the idea that you're going to have his children, his son-in-law, et cetera, engaged in the day-to-day operation of things they know nothing about.

You don't think Jared Kushner should be negotiating a Middle East peace solution? No, I don't. I don't. What credential does he bring to that? Former Vice President Joe Biden. Let's talk about the state of the race, because it has tightened. Do you still consider yourself the frontrunner? I know I'm the frontrunner. Find me a national poll with a notable couple exceptions. But look, this is a marathon. Yes. This is a marathon.

You can look at the last campaign finance filing. We looked at that. You have less than $9 million in the bank. Bernie Sanders has nearly $34 million in the bank. Senator Warren has $26 million. How do you compete against that? I just flat beat them. We're on the course to do extremely well. I'm not worried about being

able to fund this campaign. I really am not, truly. Since our interview, Biden has dropped his opposition to the formation of a super PAC, an independent political action committee that can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and big donors, something his two main rivals, Warren and Sanders, have pledged not to do. If you really want to get it done... How would you rate your performance in the debates? A learning curve. By that I mean they're not debates. They're one-minute assertions. When someone says, you know, you've done something awful that's not true,

respond in 30 seconds, you know, it's all but hard to do. But you've made a number of gaffes in the debates. In the October debate, you confused Syria with Iraq. In the September debate, you conflated Iraq and Afghanistan. When you're watching these debates, do you worry about the gaffes? No, I don't worry about the gaffes. And you know what? The American people know who Joe Biden is. I mean, if he misspeaks one word, that doesn't affect the way they're going to vote one way or the other. Some Democrats worry and wonder whether you'll be fast enough on your feet or quick enough to defend yourself against President Trump. Well, what they're really trying to make the case is about age.

And with age comes experience, with experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes judgment. You know he calls you Sleepy Joe. I know that. You will be 77 in November. Is that too old to be president? No. I just say to him, watch me.

Just watch. Have you seen any change in his ability to communicate in recent years? No, not at all. The economy is booming. Our people are prospering. The unemployment rate in September was 3.5 percent, the lowest it's been in half a century. And if the economy remains strong next year, President Trump will not miss an opportunity to remind voters of that fact, nor a chance to bash those seeking to impeach him. They know they can't win an election day, so they're pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bulls**t impeachment.

I think he thinks that if you say the big lie enough, you keep repeating it, you keep repeating it, people will believe it. But this time, it's different. You were in the Senate for 36 years. You know a lot of these Republican senators well. What would it take for 20 or more Republican senators to vote to remove the president from office? For the people in their district to say, in their state to say, enough, we're holding you responsible.

About this election, if it doesn't work out, would you be okay with that? Could you walk away and say, I didn't win, but my legacy is intact? I'm not worried about my legacy. What I am worried about is the country. Four years of Donald Trump will be very hard to overcome, but we can. Eight years of Donald Trump will fundamentally change the nature of who we are as a country. It will take a generation, a generation or more, for us to get back on track. It's harvest season for California's largest cash crop, marijuana. Valued at more than $11

billion, it's worth more than the state's grape and almond industries combined. California grows more pot than any place in the country. Three years ago, voters approved a ballot measure called Prop 64 in California. It made marijuana legal for anyone over the age of 21. Advocates said a regulated pot industry would push out the black market and generate more than a half billion dollars a year for the state. So has it worked? Not quite. We spent a week in a region of California that should be rolling in profits, the Emerald Triangle. What Napa is to wine, the triangle is to weed. Its Mediterranean climate and rich soil are famous for producing some of the highest quality marijuana in the world.

This might look like a Home Depot, but it's a pot processing plant, and every one of those buckets is full of marijuana. At the height of production, this room is the biggest legal pot stash in the country. How much cannabis is in this room? There's several thousand pounds. Several thousand pounds. Yes, tens of thousands, actually. Mikey Steinmetz runs the Flo Cana factory.

It packages weed from legal, state-regulated farms in the Emerald Triangle to be shipped and sold around California to licensed stores. There is nothing like this anywhere else in the pot industry. This is like Willy Wonka stuff, right? Yeah, we've been called that before, the Willy Wonka of weed. So you have to create and come up with all this stuff? Everything, everything. And that's what the hardest part is, that the technology and innovation is just starting to enter the space.

Forget those stereotypes about stoners. Some of his workers came from Apple and Google. They precisely weigh joints, inspect buds like gems, and package it to look more like high-end cosmetics than cannabis. Oh, wow. It's a different one. This is Pineapple Wonder. It smells pineapple-y? Yeah. Steinmetz raised $175 million in just one year to get this off the ground.

But despite all that, all along the supply chain, we found it's been far from a gold rush. Is it a windfall? Are you all of a sudden rich? Are you making tons of profit? No, candidly, the regulated market has been a fraction of what everybody expected it to be. Why? The retail market has been very slow to roll out.

That's a nice one for sure. The slow rollout is because of the strict limits You know, the retail market has been very slow to roll out. That's a nice one for sure. The slow rollout is because of the strict limits on opening pot shops in California. Although Prop 64 legalized marijuana across the state, it gave towns and cities the power to decide if pot businesses can open locally. 80% said, not in my town. So we have less retailers than we do in Oregon, for example, in a state that orders a magnitude larger.

Say that again. You have less retailers in... There's less retailers in California than there are in the state of Oregon. And remember, California growers can only legally sell their marijuana in California. And licensed stores like this one in the Emerald Triangle are rare. Give me a sense of kind of who the customers are who are walking in right now. Our demographic is over 60. That is... Really? Yes.

Yeah, we get a... Are they old hippies or are they grandparents with joint pain? I would say they're both. Yeah. But there's not enough stores like this that sell marijuana legally, and there's way too much of it being grown. California grows 11 million more pounds than it can consume a year. Prices have crashed. It made things even more difficult for

legal businesses like Flo Cana. There's an insane surplus of marijuana. For sure. Is it possible that there are too many growers, that we're producing too much weed in California? Yeah, I mean, historically, California has been the supply of the nation, right? It's simply just the numbers don't add up. It's also not adding up for licensed pot farmers in the Emerald Triangle. We drove up what locals call the million-dollar highway into the heart of pot country. For decades, pot farmers have hauled their weed on this winding remote road. A lot of it grown on family farms like Casey O'Neill's. They've been here since

the 70s. Welcome to the farm. Thank you so much. He has just 45 marijuana plants. He calls them his ladies, and they're tucked between his rows of vegetables. All the cannabis in this row, Strawberry Valley. O'Neill, who spent time in jail for cultivating marijuana before it was legal, was one of the first to get a license after Prop 64 passed. I grow cannabis because I really love it. I like to consume it. I like to be around it. It's something that provides my being and consciousness with tremendous love and support. But his being and consciousness is getting strangled by red tape and a laundry list of requirements that don't make sense to growers,

like weighing marijuana leaves, which is the part of the plant you don't smoke and can't get you high. I must take all of the leaf that comes off the plant, I must weigh it, I must record the weight, and I must put all of the leaf that comes off the plant. I must weigh it. I must record the weight and I must put it in a locked compost facility. So it's just like big brother has some funny ideas. Because what's the worry with the leaves? If you can't smoke the leaf, why does it matter? Exactly. Then there's the cost of operating legally. A major reason, O'Neill says, farmers he knows have decided to keep growing and selling marijuana illegally. For most people out here, the opportunity

to participate does not exist. The barriers to entry are too high. The costs are too high. The skill sets are too low. The flip side of it is people are not going to jail for cannabis. And what's the cost to you? So when you factor in consulting fees, you know, I just did a back-of-the-napkin calculation, and over the last three, four years, I'm well over $50,000 into it. $50,000 for what, permits? For permits for consulting, $2,500 a year for the waterboard discharge permit. It's $750 a year for the pond permit. It's $1,350 application fee to the county, plus another $675 when they actually give you the permit annually.

For a farm this size. For the smallest farm that there is. And that's one of the problems. So what does that do to your profits? What profits? You're not making any money right now? No. Really? Absolutely not. So where's the money being made in California? It turns out, in the very place legalization was supposed to destroy, the black market, which often operates out of storefronts like this and strip malls around the state. Those unlicensed shops don't have to pay for state and local permits and can sell marijuana much cheaper because they don't charge customers marijuana taxes, which can reach

as high as 45 percent. So it's cheaper and easier to buy pot on the black market, which is three times larger than the legal one. Unlike other industries, we have this kind of in the shadows, unspoken about competitor, right? So it's not like California is fully raging, fully legal. Really, we're building to a fully regulated state, but we're certainly not there yet. To see the roots of the black market in the Emerald Triangle, it helps to get high.

Our guide was Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. He's been chasing marijuana growers for 35 years. Wow, this is a big operation. Oh my goodness, this guy is going to make millions of dollars. Allman told us those white canopies belong to illegal marijuana growers undercutting California's legal pot industry. See all those shiny straight things? Those are all marijuana growers. How do you know they're not like tomatoes? Because they're hidden in the woods. Look right here.

I know those are not tomatoes, okay? There's 12 of them right there. I can guarantee you those are not tomatoes. We were surprised they weren't camouflaged. Allman explained since Prop 64 and the legalization of marijuana, the black market suppliers try to blend in with legal pot farmers, sometimes on the same property. So the backers of Prop 64 said three things, right? Okay. First, they said, we're going to raise a half billion dollars in tax revenue.

Has that happened? No. They said it's going to eliminate the black market. Has that happened? The black market has greatly increased. Has increased? Absolutely. And they said that this would now allow police officers like you to focus on other things. I'm looking forward to that day. Right now, his deputies are busy. There's so much illegal weed in areas that are so remote, they have to haul it away by helicopter. Allman says he only has the manpower to get rid of about 10% of it.

So what happens to the rest? We learned much of it is being smuggled east to the 39 states where pot is still illegal and prices are three times higher than in California. We've heard these reports from state police that say they're seeing larger shipments of marijuana moving east from California. Have you heard about this? So probably once a week, we get a call. It's usually some trooper back east, you know, at three in the morning who stopped a car for not having a taillight. He says, you won't believe it. You know, who stopped a car for not having a taillight. He says, you won't believe it. You know, we got 35, 40 pounds.

That's on the low end. Throughout the year, we spoke to highway patrols across the center of the country. They shared photos of hundreds of pounds of pot they've intercepted. This 300-pound load was in Missouri. This trailer in Idaho carried 800 pounds, and 3,400 pounds were found in this hall in Texas. Since Prop 64 was implemented, we were told by highway patrols in six states that they've seized up to three times more pot on their roads. Did this all happen too fast? Oh my goodness, of course it did. It happened way too fast. For the black market, it's been a gold rush. I'm not saying that anybody at the organizers of Prop 64 intended this to happen the way it happened. You know, they just wanted to decriminalize marijuana.

But people have taken advantage. Allman explained that Californians have little appetite to prosecute marijuana crimes. So he's had to get creative to go after the black market. If I took someone in front of a jury for growing 1,000 plants illegally, no permits, no anything, I am telling you there is no way in hell I'm going to get a conviction on cultivation of marijuana. Marijuana on its face is part of our social fabric. But if that same grower was stealing water and using pesticides,

and taking water from the river, that jury's going to hang him. Most of you already know where the target is. It's about 20 miles north of here. To see that strategy at work, we went on a marijuana raid where agents from the Department of Fish and Wildlife were leading the way. They took us down a dusty, bumpy road deep in the Emerald Triangle. Their agents had been hiding in a forest for days, staking out an illegal grow. With their guns out, they went in.

You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer any questions. As cops questioned two workers, others went row by row chopping down a thousand plants. Scientists checked for illegal pesticides and documented how water was being stolen from a creek. Those violations, which could result in fines up to $40,000 a day, may turn out to be the most effective weapon against black market growers. Who would have thought that when we write a search warrant and we go out and serve it, we would bring a biologist with us? Now it's as important to us as bringing a gun.

Illegal grows now are manifesting. They're getting bigger. They're becoming more stubborn, more acute. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was a strong supporter of Prop 64, has said it could take seven years to get past the growing pains and stomp out the black market. He's called in the National Guard to help by ordering units that were assisting the Border Patrol near Mexico to move north to the Emerald Triangle, where Casey O'Neill grows his pot. So what happens if the National Guard shows up and here come the helicopters descending on the hills of the Emerald Triangle? It's the same as it ever was. What happens six months later? What happens the day after they leave, people replant.

Casey O'Neill may be right. Six weeks after that raid we went on, cops went back to the exact spot and found 1,100 brand new marijuana plants. Chinese call them shang mao, meaning bear that looks like a cat. The adjective they use is mung, which translates cute like a baby. Until recently, the giant panda was on its way to extinction. But then it was saved by its one evolutionary advantage. It's adorable.

In 2016, the panda's conservation status was upgraded from endangered to just vulnerable. Because the giant panda is China's national symbol, the Chinese have worked four decades to perfect breeding the bears in captivity. They've achieved one of the biggest successes in conservation, but there is more work to do. The next step is introducing captive pandas into the wild. That research slowed after a few freed bears were found dead. And as you're about to see, no Chinese scientist can afford to lose even one baby cute cat bear. Giant pandas have been chewing bamboo for about 3 million years.

But they were so elusive in the high mountains of China, pandas weren't discovered by Western naturalists until 1869. Today, their fans know where to find them. Each morning, humans compete for position at the Qingdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in central China. A ticket is about eight bucks. Some days there are 100,000 visitors. So yes, that's $800,000 a day. But the experience is priceless. If these bears were in the wild, they'd be rare and solitary. They would be in alpine forests as high as 13,000 feet, and we saw, about 30 feet up, how they went unnoticed for so long. At the research base, each bear is known by name, liked online, and wrapped in the flag.

A selfie with China's national symbol is a tap of patriotism. When I'm out on the street, and if anybody asks me about what I do, I tell them I work with Giant Pandas. They immediately thank me. And then they follow it up with, that is our national treasure. Enriching the treasure is the work of Mark Valitutto, a wildlife veterinarian from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, on loan to the Chengdu Research Base. Hengcheng Yao. And so what we see here is actually a normal, healthy panda lung and a normal, healthy panda

heart. The Smithsonian has helped propagate pandas since China sent Richard Nixon home with a pair in 1972. Back then, China barely had two to spare. By the 1980s, there were only about 1,200 left in China's bamboo forests, which humans were cutting down. Is bamboo the only thing they eat? 99% of their diet in the wild is bamboo. A forest is delivered every day to the Qingdu base. The common name, panda, means bamboo eater. But because this member of the grass family is so low in nutrition,

each bear spends up to 16 hours a day shredding 40 pounds of leaves and stems. And that is hardly enough to keep him alive. So the rest of the day, the bears burn as few calories as possible. Even mating is incredibly rare. Only once a year can a female be prepared for breeding, and that is within a very small three-day window a female panda is capable of breeding three days a year exactly very small time a very small time for a very small bear and how old are these cubs one month dr wu kanju told us when these cubs are newborn,

they average about four ounces, the size of a stick of butter. And how many cubs do you bring into the world in a year? This year is five babies. Of the five cubs that are born here this year, how many do you expect to survive? All of them. About half the time, pandas have twins, but the mother can't care for both. In the wild, the smaller, the weaker twin will be left off to die because the mother doesn't have enough energy to produce the amount of milk that's required for two babies.

But in captivity, twins are fed in the nursery. And with a touch, mom is called to duty to nurse the twins one at a time so both survive. The cub's eyes won't open for about six weeks, so mother helps him to her breast. And like every nursing mom, a change of position helps, especially when her back is killing her. The cubs are dependent up to three years. She'll raise only five or maybe eight in her lifetime. How big do they become? So the females can be up to maybe around 200 pounds,

and the males up to 300 pounds. Why are they black and white? You know, that's a very interesting question. It's a mechanism to protect themselves, like many, many other animals out there that are black and white or various different colors. It's camouflage? You know, pandas love the snow, so the white parts really help them hide in the snow, whereas the black would be presumptive of shadows. The panda is a curious bear. In the last century, many biologists didn't think it belonged in the bear family.

Pandas don't hibernate, and though they're virtual vegetarians, they have the digestive tract of a carnivore. Panda nutrition was a mystery when Dr. Hao Rong came here nearly 30 years ago. She's director of research and told us that the base started as a shelter for injured pandas that had been rescued. There were very few pandas, she said. All of them were seriously ill, close to impossible to breed. We were also broke. I was the only scientist. You had a dozen pandas?

Yes. How many do you have now? Now it's 200. 200 healthy pandas have grown from the research into nutrition and understanding those fleeting female hormones. It's gone so well that a new area of research has opened, panda geriatrics. The bears live about 20 years in the wild,

but up to 35 in the company of man. In 1937, a leading American naturalist described the giant panda as an extremely stupid beast, dull and primitive. But Mark Valitutto showed us pandas understand commands. The whistle signals something good is about to happen, generally involving apple slices. Then, on cue, the bear volunteered its arm through the bars to a metal tray and gripped a handle. It's having a blood test.

All of the pandas, the adult pandas here, are trained specifically to offer their arm for a blood sample. It really helps us as veterinary animals from having to be anesthetized and allows the animal to be an active participant in their health. And that's it. I've seen people throw a bigger fuss than he did. They're incredibly complex creatures, just like many other bear species or carnivorous species like dogs and cats. Like dogs, pandas come at the sound of their name.

They know their day will start with apples and continue at the endless bamboo buffet. But success in captivity does not necessarily mean salad days for the species. To thrive genetically, they must come home to the wild. This is really an exciting time because they're doing so well in captivity, and we can really consider them safe. That's not so for the wild populations. Melissa Songer is a Smithsonian conservation biologist working at the foot of Mount Ching Chong near the center of China. This is the Chengdu Field Research Center.

Most people know it as Panda Valley. And it was established for the purpose of preparing captive pandas for release into the wild. One of the amazing things that we saw is how well trained they are. But it strikes me that that's a blessing and a curse. They don't have the opportunity to learn how to find food or defend against predators. Even mating is very complex in the wild. So, yes, they're highly trained, but they aren't really trained to be in the wild.

Then do you train them to be wild? And if so, how do you do that? They're not going to be fed. They're going to have to move around and find food. And taking it step by step, so acclimatizing them to a very different situation is an important phase before full release. Like sending the kids off to college. Yeah, exactly. There are fewer than 2,000 wild pandas living in only three mountainous provinces of China. They're segregated into small groups cut off from one another by roads, farms, and villages.

About half of those populations are less than 10 pandas. And so that kind of puts them at risk for losing genetic diversity. It puts them at risk for other events, natural disasters, diseases that might come through. So it's a dangerous number. To reduce the danger, two research bases are testing competing ideas. One from a research station called Wulong minimizes contact with people to the point of dressing the trainers in panda suits that are scented with panda urine so the bears don't even get a whiff of humanity.

The other approach encourages the human relationship in case a panda needs to be rescued. While the bears walk on the wild side, they're monitored with radio collars in case they get into trouble. So far, 14 pandas have been released. Three have died. But those few failures have slowed the research because if a panda is killed, it's not just some bear. It's a bear with a name and a million likes on its web page. Anytime you release a captive animal to the wild, you're taking a risk and you prepare as best you can. But there are things you can't really prepare for. One of the pandas who died was attacked by dogs. Another appears to have fallen from a tree.

The captive-born pandas take longer to establish territory, but for the most part, they fit in. China says it will soon spend more than a billion dollars on a 10,000 square mile panda national reserve to connect those pockets of wild bears. It suggests that species can be saved. It absolutely does. But more than that, what's even better than the survivability of this species is that they are an umbrella species, meaning that the care that we provide for the pandas and the tracts of land that we preserve will also save a whole multitude of other species that also need our care that a lot of people don't even know about. Which raises a fair question. If a multitude of species is saved, if climate benefits from 5 million acres of forest reserve,

are we saving the panda? Or is the panda saving us? Next Sunday on 60 Min 60 minutes we head west to meet the first family of saddle bronc riding one of the last blue collar sports in america it's an eight second ride you won't forget Can I see a show of hands of how many of you have been injured? I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back with that and more next week on another edition of 60 Minutes.