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Chinese scientists have developed a successful panda breeding program and it involves showing the animals exactly how to do it.
There are about 150 pandas at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, in southern China, and up close and personal there is no doubt about it — they are adorable, cute and cuddly. But they no longer hold the key to their own survival.
They are just not interested in sex. They have lost the desire and the know-how.
In captivity "they lose their natural habits", senior scientist Shen Fujun said.
"The complex rhythm of Panda mating behaviour, with its territorial scent marking and mating calls and social interactions over large areas, is disrupted."
It has taken a team of experts three decades to make the captive pandas mate again. Last year 23 were born at the centre and this year they are expecting more.
"Since the 1980s we've come to understand their sexual behaviour, been able to determine exactly when the female ovulates, and develop successful artificial insemination processes," Dr Shen said.
Female pandas only ovulate one to three days a year. It's a tiny window so they have make the most it.
Panda porn
Zhang Hao is one of the senior keepers in charge of breeding program and says pandas, like humans, are picky about who they mate with.
"We have to find the best partner for them, but they have personal choices too, so it can be difficult," he said.
The centre has developed a kind of speed dating program for the pandas. The female is brought into a special mating cage and then one by one up to five male pandas will be paraded before her through a grate. The males have to be separated otherwise they will fight.
On the day 7.30 filmed a male panda was rubbing up against the grate, walking around agitated and grunting at the female, apparently to show his interest, but it was to no avail. She preferred to have a nap.
Mr Zhang said when a female likes a male "she will rub her body through [the ] grate at him and stick her tail up towards the male panda".
"It's quite interesting. She will also make special sound of love. Both female and male will make sound to each other. It's like they are sending each other love messages."
Once the female has chosen her partner he is brought into the cage with her, but often they just do not know what to do, so to teach them they are shown videos of pandas mating — panda porn.
"We set up the TV just outside the bars and they watch. Pandas understand what it is, so often they go closer and sit with their eyes wide open," Zhang Hao said.
"The pandas' instinctual way to learn is through observation, so we use it in this way and they can learn from the mating videos quite effectively."
The biggest challenge
The next challenge is to work out if they are pregnant. There is no definitive test so keepers such as Zhang Linan are on a constant look out for signs.
"Their eating habits become different. Before they give birth they stop eating and look depressed because they're trying to save energy," she said.
Until recently panda biology was a bit of a mystery. The foetus is tiny and floats so it is hard to detect with an ultrasound, and pandas can be pregnant for between three and six months.
When they are born it is a wonder they survive. They are tiny and completely helpless, just one-thousandth the size of their mother.
"It's like they give birth to the foetus. They need a lot of time and care to grow. Their ears and eyes are not completely developed," Ms Zhang said.
But survival rates after birth at the Chengdu centre are now nearly 100 per cent. And that is because the panda babies are assigned a human "mother" such as Ms Zhang who cares for them 24-hours a day, nursing them, bottle feeding them and burping them.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for the panda scientists and keepers is to release them back into the wild. Mr Zhang says it is their mission to do this.
"We are panda guardians. All of us work hard and hope to restore pandas to their environment where they belong," he said.
In preparation the Chinese Government has increased the number of panda reserves in southern China from 12 to 67. On paper they are the most protected animals on the planet and there is no threat from poachers. But many of the reserves are small, populated by villagers and cut up by roads, farms and other human constructions.
The Chinese Government is looking for solutions and is now trying to merge all the reserves. In a rare turnaround 170,000 people will be moved out of the proposed new park to let the pandas roam free to mingle and to mate.
Topics: animals, animal-behaviour, china