It is once again the giant panda breeding season in Edinburgh, with the zoo’s most famous couple described as “extremely interested in one another” as experts race to take advantage of the animals’ notoriously brief window of conception.
Iain Valentine, director of the giant panda project for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, confirmed that the female, Tian Tian, had been artificially inseminated in the early hours of Thursday morning, by a team of veterinarians from Scotland and China. Only semen from the male panda, Yang Guang, was used during the procedure.
“Natural mating will also be attempted today before the short breeding window comes to a close this afternoon, as both pandas remain extremely interested in one another,” said Valentine, “but as Tian Tian’s transition to peak was so rapid it was a priority to move straight to AI first.”
Valentine added: “Throughout Wednesday, Tian Tian remained very quiet and sleepy, but by 5pm there was a behavioural shift and the results of hormone tests that came back at 7pm, carried out by the University of Edinburgh, confirmed ovulation had occurred. As each individual panda is different and their pattern can vary from year to year, this is why we start hormone monitoring via urine samples so early and continually observe our female via CCTV as the window approaches.”
Tian Tian and Yang Guang – their names mean Sweetie and Sunshine – arrived in Scotland on loan from China in 2011 and will remain at Edinburgh zoo for a decade. They are the first pandas to live in Britain for nearly 20 years.
Tian Tian was successfully inseminated in 2013 – the first such procedure to take place on a giant panda in the UK – but lost her cub at late term. She again conceived artificially in April last year but the embryo did not develop.
Edinburgh Zoo said the panda enclosure would be likely to remain closed until the end of the week.
