11 December 2010
EDINBURGH Zoo is preparing for Scotland's first ever pair of giant pandas to arrive in September. The rare bears will be the first to be homed in the UK for 30 years.
Negotiations to bring a couple of the endangered animals to Scotland have been ongoing for some time. Zoo officials now believe they will be housing the bears by next autumn.
Final paperwork is still to be completed and can only be signed by either the president or prime minister of China.
Because the animals can only be a gift from the country, a diplomatic ceremony must be arranged between the Chinese and UK governments. However, the zoo is making preparations for the bears this autumn.
Iain Valentine, director of animals, education and conservation at Edinburgh Zoo, has been working on acquiring giant pandas for four years. Mr Valentine, who previously worked at zoos in Blackpool and Ecuador, described the creatures as an "enduring fossil". He added: "To have giant pandas puts us in the premier league of zoos."
Just four zoos in America, two in Europe and one each in Australia, Japan and Thailand have the creatures. The UK has not had a giant panda since London sent theirs for breeding in the 1980s.
The pair of pandas will be the most northerly giant pandas to have been kept, but Mr Valentine is confident Scotland will provide a good environment as the bears have a thick coat designed for cold conditions.
Outgoing chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), David Windmill, said: "We think on the basis of the information we have the it could be September next year."
RZSS president John Spence, said: "We are preparing the zoo for their arrival in September, but it could be March 2012. If it's the following March then it's March, but we will be ready in September."
Acquiring giant pandas from China requires careful diplomacy and politics. In September, First Minister Alex Salmond wrote to Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi regarding the subject of loaning the bears. Prime Minister David Cameron is understood to have discussed the plan while on a visit to the country this year. A spokesman for the zoo said the board did not want to comment on whether attendance of the Nobel Peace prize by Brits would affect the deal.
The zoo has plans to create a ten-acre bamboo plantation to feed the bears who could be at the zoo for a decade. It is hoped the pandas would help attract tourists, who do not tend to visit the zoo.
Mr Valentine said Adelaide Zoo in Australia had seen visitor numbers soar from 400,000 annually to a million in just a year
