Panda-ing to the Masses – Beijing Recalls Edinburgh Pandas
Now giant pandas are undeniably cute. They are the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund and they are the number one attraction at Edinburg Zoo, but they are also infuriating animals. The inflexibility of the creatures is well known. They aren’t the least bit interested in having sex, they live mostly alone and have the very devil of a job to reproduce, even when conditions are ideal. Their fertility cycle is only active for 36 hours in a year. They eat one thing and one thing alone and that’s bamboo, by the ton. Many a zoo keeper has been driven to distraction by the problems of pandas, but we all love them. Is this the contrariness of human nature too? But despite the pandas refusal to change, change is about to be forced upon them. This coming December Edinburgh’s Tian Tian the female and Yang Guang the male pair will return to China after the expiry of their 12 year long loan agreement.
At 20 Tian Tian is now a rather elderly lady in panda terms and she’s now rather sleepy and she shows no signs at all of getting pregnant, despite a couple of hopeful starts earlier in her tenure at the zoo. A yawn and a stretch is enough to gets the crowds stirring, but it’s not a lot to show for a day’s activities. While the younger male Yang Guang is a rather more thrusting figure , his exploits rarely go beyond choosing a nicer piece of bamboo and breaking wind.
The pandas have become accustomed to their keepers, who use clackers and whistles to make the pair open their mouths for necessary dental inspections. The pair normally yawn for ages when they woke up so the keepers pounced on this behaviour with noisy devices and treats so the pandas will now open up when they hear the sound. They expect the treat too. Though I’m not sure what a panda treat might look like, since they only eat bamboo! But there is one thing that pandas can do and that they can improve your balance sheet. Just before the pandas came in 2011 the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the charity which runs Edinburgh Zoo, was £1.2 million in the red. Add two pandas and hey presto one year later they were £2.4 million in the black. Pandas obviously reach the parts of the balance sheet other animals cannot reach.
Now we here at James Pirie want to refresh your pocket book and keep you out of the red. And fond as we are of nature we’d like to bring a flash of the natural world into your home, or providing a beautiful gift at a very reasonable cost. Take this Bee & Honeysuckle Barrel Vase from Royal Scot Crystal it’s at half price and it won’t give you hives! It comes in a lovely blue and gold gift box.
