After years of trying, without success, to get a cub, Edinburgh Zoo announced this Wednesday (4) that it will give a pair of pandas to China in 2023, the only gift to the world. UK.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) said it planned to give Yang Guang and Tian Tian a “grand send-off” at the zoo before their departure this year.
“As the UK’s only giant pandas, they are incredibly popular with visitors, help connect millions of people with nature and raise vital funds for wildlife conservation,” said RZSS Executive Director David Field.
The panda couple arrived in Edinburgh in December 2011 under a ten-year loan agreement with the Chinese Society for Wildlife Conservation.
But it soon became clear that they had no desire to reproduce. Zookeepers attempted to artificially inseminate Tian Tian in 2013, but were unsuccessful.
Yang Guang was later castrated after being treated for testicular cancer.
Because giant pandas naturally lose interest in mating or don’t know how to do it, they have great difficulties reproducing in captivity.
Attempts to breed pandas in captivity began in China in 1955, but did not come to fruition until 1963 when Ming Ming was born at the Beijing Zoo.
Originating from the Tibetan Plateau in southwest China, giant pandas are threatened by illegal poaching, killing for their skins, and illegal deforestation, which affects the growth of their main food source, bamboo.
Pandas International estimates that the population of giant pandas in the wild currently stands at 1,864 individuals.
About 600 are kept in captivity in specialized centers, zoos and nature parks around the world.
According to Edinburgh Zoo, Yang Guang and Tian Tian could leave the Scottish capital in August 2023, two years after the loan was extended.
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