Edinburgh zoo has announced that its female giant panda, Tian Tian, has failed to produce a cub after a fifth attempt to help her breed.
Iain Valentine, the zoo’s director of giant pandas, said he was sad to confirm that the bear had failed to carry her pregnancy to term. News that Tian Tian was pregnant had emerged after his emails to the Scottish government revealing she was pregnant were released in a freedom of information request last month.
“It is with sadness that we can confirm Tian Tian, Edinburgh zoo’s resident female giant panda, will not give birth to cubs this year. Our tests show that her hormone levels and behaviour have returned to normal as the breeding cycle ends for this year,” Valentine said.
Tian Tian was artificially inseminated in spring in the fifth attempt to get her to breed after the zoo’s male panda, Yang Guang, proved unreceptive to natural mating. Semen has come from Yang Guang in the past and also the frozen semen of a now-dead male breeding bear from Berlin zoo.
Tian Tian and Yang Guang, the only giant pandas living in the UK, arrived in Edinburgh in December 2011 on a 10-year loan from China, tied to a complex and lucrative trade deal between China and the UK. The zoo pays $1m (£760,000) a year in fees to the Chinese and is thought to spend about £2m a year on the pair.
Barbara Smith, the chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), which owns and runs the zoo, added that panda-breeding was an uncertain and difficult task.
She said the zoo’s breeding programme and research had helped boost giant panda conservation programmes, which had improved the bear’s status from endangered to vulnerable.
"Giant panda breeding is an incredibly complex, unpredictable process. Over the next few weeks, we will be working closely with our Chinese partners to review not only this year’s breeding season but all the scientific data from the past five years, to help us better understand this complex process" she said.
"This year our expert team has gathered more information than ever, which will be shared with our partners both here in Scotland and across the globe for review and learnings to be applied"
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