Chinese officials today finally approved Tian Tian and Yang Guang’s new home at the city’s zoo.
The furry pair are due to land at Edinburgh airport on Sunday from Sichuan province before being whisked to a purpose-built enclosure in the zoo, complete with pool, cave and bulletproof glass.
Tian Tian and Yang Guang – their names mean sweetie and sunshine – are a breeding pair and all involved with the project hope they will defy the species’ normal reluctance to mate by producing offspring.
The couple have already been bestowed their own tartan, a largely black and white design with an “overcheck” of red and a streak of green. They also have a small supply of locally grown bamboo supplemented by regular air-freighted shipments of bamboo from a German firm which grows it outside Amsterdam.
Inevitably, there will be “panda cams” with two discreetly positioned video cameras streaming live footage from inside their enclosure on the internet.
However, it will be at least two weeks before Tian Tian and Yang Guang are unveiled to the public. Their keepers and vets, advised by Chinese experts, will allow them to acclimatise before exposing them to masses of humans.
To cope with the expected public interest, the zoo will use a booking system for crowds, who will be guided through the “panda experience” in groups. Edinburgh will be the eighth zoo in the west to care for giant pandas, one of the world’s rarest species.
The deal to lend them to the zoo for 10 years was confirmed in January when a Chinese government delegation arrived in the UK to seal £2.6bn worth of trade and investment deals, including funding to secure the Grangemouth oil refinery near Edinburgh.
