Mating season for Adelaide’s giant pandas
Adelaide Zoo’s giant pandas Wang Wang and Funi are entering their fleeting mating season with zoo staff this year focusing their efforts on a more natural approach.
Artificial insemination was trialled last year in an effort to get the pitter patter of panda cub feet, but it was unsuccessful.
Veterinarian Dr David McLelland said hormone and behavioural analysis have indicated Funi is currently heading towards the peak of her oestrous cycle.
“In the last 24 hours we have seen a significant change in Funi’s behaviour and hormone analysis indicates she is close to ovulation,” David said.
“Last year we observed more dominant behaviour from Wang Wang during his interactions with Funi, which we hope will increase the likelihood of a natural mating this year.”
Dr McLelland said the zoo had decided against artificial insemination because the problem may lie with Wang Wang’s swimmers.
“A further consideration is that we have reasons to suspect his semen quality is not currently of a sufficient standard to warrant the anaesthetic procedures that are required to attempt artificial insemination,” he said.
“Natural mating has always been our preferred option for breeding pandas.
“This year, we feel it offers us our best chance of success given his semen quality may not be optimal. As we won’t need to anaesthetise the pandas to collect semen and to inseminate the female, we can maximise the time available for the still relatively young pandas to gain experience with natural mating during Funi’s extremely short window of fertility.”
The bamboo forest at Adelaide Zoo will be closed for up the five days so as the pandas are not disturbed during the critical stage of the breeding program.
Keep up to date on the pandas on the Adelaide Zoo Facebook and Zoos SA Twitter pages.
Morning news break – September 16
