When two giant pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in December 2011, the city experienced… well, total panda-monium.
The then eight-year-old Tian Tian (which translates as Sweetie) and her proposed mate Yang Guang (Sunshine) drew huge crowds when they arrived after five years of negotiation between Scotland and China.
And the cuddly pair have become even more widely know since starring in the BBC ’s Wild About Pandas and meeting Princess Anne. But now, 12 years on, they will be returning home.
They were in the UK on a 10-year lease, extended during Covid due to both countries’ strict border policies.
It costs £640,000 a year to rent the pandas from the Bifengxia Breeding Centre in Sichuan province, not to mention the cost of their food and keep.
So now more negotiations are taking place over how to get the gentle bears home this autumn: who accompanies them; how should they travel; who pays?
Tian Tian, now 19, never conceived a cub after coming to the UK.
She even had artificial insemination using Yang Guang’s sperm when their natural mating failed to produce an heir.
Then, in 2018, all hopes of an Edinburgh baby panda ended when Yang Guang developed testicular cancer and had to be castrated.
Alison MacLean, giant panda team leader at Edinburgh Zoo, who took me to meet them, says wistfully: “I’d have loved to have seen Tian Tian with a youngster.”
She reveals that Tian Tian’s fertile days are coming to an end now too, as she’s getting on in years.
And even in her prime, Tian Tian, like all female pandas, would have had only two or three fertile days a year.
It’s part of the reason there are only 1,864 left in the wild, the WWF estimates, making them one of the most endangered species in the world.
Alison says that despite having lived together for 12 years, in separate but adjoining enclosures, Tian Tian and Yang Guang are likely to be split up when they go back to China.
She explains: “It’s highly unlikely they’ll live together, because they tend to constantly be solitary anyway.
“She’s quite happy never to see him and he’s quite happy to never see her.
“And that’s just how that would be in the wild, she’ll advertise for a male to come into her territory when she’s coming into season, but for the rest of the year she’ll be alone. It’s more competition for bamboo.”
While we’re talking, a group of excited schoolchildren run up to the enclosure.
Smearing their hands over the bulletproof glass, they point and jostle to get a closer look. Engrossed in her bamboo, Tian Tian gives no indication she’s noticed them.
Alison looks on fondly, like a proud mother. “My husband jokes he’s a panda widower,” she chuckles.
“Since they came on the scene, I’ve probably seen more of them than I have of my family.
“But you know, how many times in a zookeeper’s lifetime do you get to work with a species like this?”
The pandas munch their way through 100kg of bamboo a day each and can be picky about which shoots they choose.
Alison says: “Although we put in a lot of bamboo overnight for them, first thing they want in the morning is the fresh-out-of-the-container stuff.
“We refrigerate it and it’s got a misting system of ice-cold water, so the bamboo stays nice and fresh.
“They’ll only eat the most nutritious bit and discard the rest.
“So although it looks very wasteful for them, it’s very conservative.
“It’s not worth burning calories eating something that’s not going to give you any energy.”
They’re also fed a special panda cake. The recipe is a secret but it’s known to contain egg, oats, apple, flour and a tiny bit of sugar.
Each cake, which are all made on site, is steamed for five hours like an old-fashioned pudding.
They also get raw carrots and a calcium and vitamin supplement.
The keepers must measure everything that goes into their charges – and everything that comes out.
Alison says: “We check faecal weight and we grade the faeces so we’re able to tell what they’ve eaten.
“It helps us figure out the following day what to give them to get them in a good nutritional balance.” Zoo life can get dull so the pandas’ days are made livelier by training games.
Through positive reinforcement, they can be taught to open their mouths, show their paws and hold up their front legs for blood tests.
“We whistle-trained them with food,” says Alison. “Now they can stand still for the vet to check them.
“Yang Guang is trained to hold up his back foot because he’s got a little overgrown claw that needs trimming every three months. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever trained, because giant pandas have tickly feet.”
Alison is hoping to join the pair on their journey back to China and stay with them for a month before flying home, but talks are still ongoing.
“I’m going to miss them,” she admits. “Despite how long I’ve been doing this job, there are certain animals that have a special place in your heart, certain ones that have a wee bit of you. And the pandas always will.”
* Watch the pandas live on the Edinburgh Zoo webcams: edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/panda-cam/
