Male panda must do its duty

2003-11-19 14:05

Tokyo - Ling Ling, the only giant panda at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, will try his luck in the mating game on his home turf after failing to impregnate female pandas in Mexico City on three missions in the past three years.

A 16-year-old female panda, Shuan Shuan, is scheduled to come here in early December from Mexico City's Chapultepec Zoo on yet another mating attempt under a joint breeding programme, a Ueno Zoo official said on Tuesday.

"Ling Ling will have the upper hand on his own territory. He will have a better chance with greater latitude," said Naoki Tabata, a senior official of the zoo's breeding division.

The 18-year-old Ling Ling, who has never sired a cub, has not got along well with female pandas at Chapultepec Zoo for various reasons, Tabata said.

On the past three tries, natural mating attempts were backed up by artificial insemination to no avail.

"As soon as Ling Ling was housed together with a female panda, they broke up," he said. "First of all, he could not acclimatise himself to the environment over there."

On his second visit, Ling Ling produced very little semen although he went there early in the autumn, well ahead of the breeding season between March and May. "It was a bit too hot and the females did not seem to be on heat."

Shuan Shuan, who has never been pregnant, was born in 1987 at Chapultepec. The Mexico City zoo is where in 1980 the first giant panda was born in captivity outside China. It has since produced six pandas and now houses three females.

Ling Ling was donated to Ueno by Beijing Zoo in 1992. He has been the only giant panda at Ueno since Tong Tong, a female, died in 2000.

Under the mating programme, Chapultepec will own the first cub born and the second will be kept by Ueno. Any more new born cubs will be taken alternately.

- AFP