Artificial insemination was used on the two giant pandas held at Edinburgh Zoo this weekend. 

To be fair, it was always known that these animals would be subjected to AI procedures in the Zoo’s quest for cubs to add to the captive panda population.  Pandas are already the greatest crowd-pullers in the zoological world, and the addition of cubs to any collection would send visitor numbers into the stratosphere.

So why the long faces, here at OneKind? 

We believe wild animals belong in the wild, where they can roam free, forage and feed as they like, avoid or associate with companions, follow their instincts in selecting a mate -  and, when they breed, they can do so without surgical intervention.  These are the things that matter to the individual, and the things that the hoped-for captive population will never enjoy. 

Panda breeding in zoos has a low success rate and, as we have just seen, can involve considerable human intervention.  Even then, the cubs do not always survive – for example Dan Dan, in Kobe Zoo in Japan, conceived one cub through natural means and one by artificial insemination, but both died.

Of course we care about the endangered giant panda population (although estimates of their numbers vary, and they may be more numerous than previously thought).  Nonetheless there is a giant panda population in the wild, and the animals do reproduce. 

Chinese commentator Wang Dajun wrote recently on the Chinadialogue website that while captive breeding (in China) may have proved successful, it was no substitute for protecting wild populations and their habitats.  Despite significant efforts to support the reserves in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces in China where the wild pandas actually live, there is still considerable work to do.  But surely, if we are serious about the welfare and conservation of these sentient, sensitive animals, that is where it should be done.

There has still to be a successful reintroduction of a single giant panda to the wild, even from the captive breeding centre in Wolong.  Breeding pandas in a zoo in Edinburgh is never going to bolster that wild population.