If your argument is that it's clear we should prefer species preservation over all else, then let's take the giant panda example to its logical extreme. Human population (estimated 7,800,000,000) / giant panda population (1,864) = 4,184,549. So all 'reasonable people' would kill 4 million humans before a single giant panda. Is that really the argument here?
What if there was just a single panda left? Should we in this case terminate the whole human population down to one last person before killing the panda?