Wild about Pandas

Two giant pandas, Yang Guang and Tian Tian,

are about to embark on an incredible journey...

..from a life of tranquillity in the mountains of China

to celebrity status at Edinburgh Zoo.

It's not only a coup for the zoo, it's a significant boost

for Britain's relations with China.

But the zoo have never looked after a panda before, so the pressure's on.

They are potentially very valuable animals

and have an insurance price tag of about £1 million each.

With falling visitor numbers, the zoo is taking on huge debt

in tough economic times.

Success depends on creating a world-class attraction.

To do that, the zoo's staff will have to learn how to pander to the pandas' every need...

He like carrot, he like bread...

He likes bread, OK!

..supply enough bamboo to satisfy a 16-hour-a-day feeding habit...

That's how much bamboo a panda roughly eats in a day.

..and find a way of safely transporting this precious cargo halfway across the world...

-Quite nerve-wracking, actually!

-Quite nervous, watching.

Hello!

..all in the hope that they will one day produce

the most sought-after of all panda products -

a baby...

..and play a crucial role in ensuring the survival of pandas in the wild.

Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland's premier animal attraction,

has hit hard times.

Its collection of rare and endangered species

no longer attracts the visitors it once did.

Now, hoping to double ticket sales, the zoo is putting its reputation on the line

to present the ultimate animal exhibit.

This is soon to be the new home of a breeding pair of giant pandas.

The pandas are from the Szechuan Mountains of China

and a sanctuary known as Bifengxia.

A feisty male called Yang Guang, also known as Sunshine...

..and Tian Tian, a timid and shy female known as Sweetie,

are eight years old and were both born in captivity.

These two pandas are about to become the most famous zoological couple in the world.

The man soon to be responsible for the health of these most prized animals

is Vet Simon Girling.

-Is this the kindergarten?

-This is the kindergarten.

Never having looked after pandas before,

he's come to learn all he can from his counterpart, Professor Tang.

Panda is not only a symbol of China but also a symbol of the world.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Most of the world, people love pandas.

Yes, it's one of the most iconically recognisable mammals

anywhere in the world, really, a giant panda.

This is Simon's first encounter with the two giant pandas

soon to be in his charge.

So, this is a very special panda villa.

Sometimes, the pandas are outside, moving, climb on tree,

and sometimes inside.

Tian Tian...looking at us.

Tian Tian!

Tian Tian...lovely, very beautiful.

-Yes.

-White, black colour, very clean,

but today...

-Today, she's a bit dirty!

-A little...

muddy.

-I guess the weather's a bit...

-Yes.

Hey, Yang Guang!

-Hello!

-Hello, there.

-How are you?

-Come out for the morning.

So, he has...pretty much all this area coming down around here.

Hey!

Yes, he seems quite...quite relaxed about it all, doesn't he?

-Very relaxed.

-Yeah, he seems very...

You can see how the colouration on the back there where he sits,

that's quite common -

that typical pattern of colouration over the lower back

-where they sit in that laid-back fashion which is so peculiar to pandas.

-Yeah.

Yang Guang is one of over 80 pandas at Bifengxia,

a sanctuary set up to protect pandas from extinction.

At the last count, there were only around 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild.

Bamboo habitat,

crucial to their survival, has been destroyed by aggressive industrialisation

and massive population explosion in China.

Determined to reverse the damage, the Chinese have become experts

on breeding and rearing giant pandas in captivity.

Their plan is working, with 300 babies born at Bifengxia so far.

Professor Tang is hoping that the pandas destined for Scotland will produce a cub.

We hope Tian Tian and Yang Guang will be...

Well, this is it, you know. Fingers crossed.

That would be a dream come true, if they could hit it off.

Yes, that would be lovely.

I can't think of a panda being born in the UK, I cannot recall one.

I don't think there has been one, so...

Certainly not in Scotland,

so that's going to be a hugely joyful thing.

Certainly, in the zoo, we will be ecstatic about that if that happens.

It will be a great day.

But the sex drive of captive pandas is notoriously low.

Despite just two or three fertile days a year,

they often prefer eating to procreating.

If it doesn't happen naturally, the next step

is artificial insemination.

Less romantic, perhaps, but much more effective.

Almost half of panda pregnancies result in twins,

but with milk for only one, the weaker is rejected.

In the wild, those cubs would die.

In captivity, they are rescued and hand-reared.

Probably the biggest challenge we are likely to have

is getting the pandas to breed in the first instance,

but that doesn't end there - we have the challenge then

of making sure that any infant born is healthy,

and if we have twins then we have the facility

to incubate and to hand-rear the second infant.

Certainly, we've had a lots of discussions with the Chinese here and Professor Tang.

We have a room dedicated in the panda facility to do that.

Hopefully... It's always easier with one infant,

but if we get twins, we have the capability to hand-rear the second twin.

It is potentially extremely exciting -

it will be a nerve-wracking thing, as well, the responsibility of that is huge,

and for our keepers and staff there will be an awful lot of

joy and excitement should that happen,

but I imagine a sense of trepidation as well.

No, obviously, that's what we're hoping for

and we'll have to wait and see whether or not we're successful.

Yang Guang and Tian Tian have both bred before,

so there's a good chance they will again.

And that's what Edinburgh Zoo is counting on.

Head of Conservation Iain Valentine

is the mastermind behind the panda deal.

He's spent five years negotiating with the Chinese

to secure two of the most coveted animals in the conservation world.

It's a huge deal for the zoo but it's also a controversial one.

Some argue the money would be better spent elsewhere.

For those people who say

we should just wave goodbye to giant pandas, they've had huge amounts of money spent on them,

this is a species that has been on the planet for a very long time.

It's done very well.

It's thanks to man that they've had problems,

but it's also thanks to man that their future is going to be secure.

So, for me, they symbolise hope,

not a species we can wave goodbye to,

and if we can't look after giant pandas, what can we look after?

Securing the giant pandas is not only important for the zoo,

there are political and economical implications too.

On the very day the panda contract was signed,

a string of lucrative deals were agreed, benefiting both countries.

Pandas, it seems, could be our passport to prosperity.

I think this has been a milestone in a growing relationship

of immense significance for the future

between the United Kingdom and China.

With so much at stake, the pressure's on

to ensure the project's a success.

The zoo needs to create a world-class enclosure on a budget,

so decides to refurbish the old gorilla house.

They're constructing a large walkway to give the visitor

an uninterrupted view of the pandas...

and adding a Chinese theme to the experience.

Simon Jones has been Gardeners Manager at the zoo for five years.

He'll have to create a panda paradise, guaranteed to impress the visitors

as well as keep Tian Tian and Yang Guang happy.

What we would like the panda to be able to do is to traverse the enclosure,

so basically, it will be able to climb up onto the logs at the back there,

get up onto the biggest log and sit there and eat its bamboo on a nice sunny day,

if it so chooses.

Crucially, one of the things we had to do for the enclosure

is have the climbing structure high enough

so that the panda can see the other panda over the walls,

because that's what they would get in the wild.

They wouldn't see each other all the time

and they would get a snapshot of each other,

and they only really come together to mate, so that's what we're trying to simulate here,

that relationship where they can get a snapshot of each other, if they so choose.

Getting the enclosure right is not the only challenge.

Scotland is hardly natural bamboo country,

so sourcing enough of the stuff to feed the pandas is a big ask for Simon.

A newspaper article highlighting their predicament

provokes a big public response,

and now Simon's visiting a house in Helensburgh,

to see if their bamboo crop measures up.

Just round here...

Excellent!

Fantastic, look at this! This'll be some bamboo, then.

Good stuff.

What I've got here is a fresh shoot, so this is this year's growth...

The interesting thing about bamboo is, a bit like bulbs, onions,

before this comes from underground,

all these little nodes in-between, they're already fully developed,

but they're all compressed into a tiny little space.

To get their growth going, they just expand.

-Expanding nodes!

-Exactly.

What the pandas like is these wee fresh shoots.

It's very, very soft - see how easily I'm slicing through it? It's not hard at all.

I am known in the park, though,

to wander about the zoo in the springtime

and just eat all the new buds on the trees and the new leaves.

They're tastier than peas. Look how fresh that is.

-Lovely.

-No pancakes for you?

-No. Bamboo.

If I like it, a panda will absolutely love this.

OK.

This is...roughly how much a panda eats in a day.

In one day.

That's about 25 stems, something like that.

It'll eat from the bottom to the top.

The panda will definitely be a little bit more selective

than what I just was. I just went in and chopped it all down.

It will go in and choose the stems it wants, depending on tenderness and all sorts of different things.

It won't take long to get rid of that plantation.

Unfortunately, bamboo patches like this would be gobbled up in weeks.

The search for a good Chinese takeaway continues.

Looking after such iconic creatures is a huge undertaking.

Edinburgh Zoo's head keeper, Alison McLean,

has come to China for a month of intensive training.

It's a golden opportunity to learn from the experts

and to prove she is up to the challenge.

The pandas in the centre are used to humans

being round about them.

They have one keeper to every two pandas

and they work exclusively with those pandas

so they get to know them in the same way your pet dog gets to know you.

And obviously the keepers are round about them the whole day.

They feed them, train them, touch them, they are with them all the time,

so the pandas tend to respond in quite a positive way

because everything the keepers do is positive towards them.

Alison is being trained to look after Tian Tian

and Yang Guang by keeper Che Hau.

She study from me.

I will teach her everything,

including how to feed.

How to know the panda character. How to chew the bamboo.

Everything about panda.

In the ground?

-To simulate the natural bamboo in the wild.

-OK.

The panda will grab the stick.

Feeding the pandas will be more labour intensive because

we have to collect the bamboo, we have to bring it in, sort through it,

we have to set it out in a way that is more naturalistic for the panda

to feed from, whereas anything else - I look after a carnivore -

you tend to either throw something in or scatter it about.

Also with the pandas, they appear to get fed throughout the day, not just once.

It's a continuous process.

With the pandas, you do one feed, you'll clean,

then you'll do another feed, then you'll clean.

It seems to be an all-day job.

And then you put in a huge amount of bamboo in the evening for them

to feed on overnight.

Pandas now eat bamboo because it's a simple thing for them

to get their hands on.

They live in the bamboo forest. If I was sitting in a forest

or an environment which had a ready supply of some kind of food,

I would choose to use that too.

That's exactly what the pandas have done.

There are some great points about that.

You don't have to move far.

At the same time, because bamboo is not nutritionally valuable,

you have to eat huge amounts and digest that

and get your body to live off that, so it means more time is spent

eating rather than hunting.

It's vital that the pandas' diet is carefully monitored.

For a clearer picture of what's going in, you need to examine

what's come out.

I am becoming an expert on panda poop.

It comes in all different colours. Scott was explaining to me that is dependant on what they have eaten.

So this in the male enclosure.

Fei Fei has had some carrot and the stuff Scott calls the stick

is the stems of the bamboo and it comes through

as white woody stems, and then you've got this kind of poop here.

This means he has been feeding on the leaf of the bamboo as well.

According to Scott, it's important that we take note that he is feeding on both kinds.

Scott will then determine what he feeds to the individual panda,

dependant on whether they have had a lot of leaf or a lot of stem.

So he will maybe say to me today bring bamboo

with a lot of leaf or bring big sticks, so it changes from each feed.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang will eat enough bamboo to fill a double-decker bus

every 12 months.

That's fine if you live in the bamboo rich mountains of China

but there is nowhere in Britain where that volume of bamboo can be found.

It's a major headache for the zoo back in Edinburgh.

Gardens Manager Simon Jones still needs to find a bamboo source

big enough to satisfy Tian Tian and Yang Guang's appetites.

He thinks he's found a solution.

He's heading to one of the biggest wholesale

bamboo suppliers in Europe to see if they can meet their demands.

-Hello, Reiner.

-Hello.

-Good to see you.

Nice to see you. Hello.

This enormous plantation

grows bamboo to supply the three other giant panda zoos in Europe.

To the panda different species, different varieties will taste different.

And this is because the bamboo has a huge range.

You get certain species that are the fine-leaved ones,

like this species here that grow on the mountainsides

and have different nutrients in the soil, different water content,

therefore the plants will taste different.

If you come further south in the mountain, you will get into the more tropical regions.

You will get bigger broad-leaved species of bamboo. They will all taste different.

-Is this Phyllostachys bissetii? No, this is spectabulis.

-The green one is florestecha.

OK. This one, if I was to buy this in a normal plant,

not cut, would that be good for Scotland and the cold weather?

-It's a full winter.

-OK.

The Dutch bamboo ticks all the boxes but it will cost £70,000 a year.

Not many people have this amount of bamboo

growing in a field in this situation.

It costs quite a lot of money for us

or any zoo to transport this back to their own zoo.

With the arrival date looming, it's the only option.

HE WHISTLES

You two. Hey.

Bamboo is their principle food source

but in the wild, pandas like Tian Tian would also forage for grubs

and berries, so captive pandas must have their diet supplemented.

The sanctuary has developed a special cake, packed full with all they need.

A unique recipe made up of ground pulses,

eggs and water make up this panda delicacy.

The pandas really like panda cake and it's an absolute definite that they will eat it.

They don't get a huge amount of it. Yang Guang will only get 1,800g a day

which is a tiny amount, maybe about half of one of these

and when you compare that to the size he is, it's not much at all.

And Tian Tian is only on 400g a day, so it's a very small amount for her.

This is for 77 pandas they have on the base here and I'm making it

for two pandas, so realistically I will be making two cakes

so everything will be exactly the same but just on a much smaller scale.

Vet Simon and Professor Tang are visiting the kindergarten at snack time.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS NATIVE TONGUE

How old are these?

-One years old.

-One years old?

-How many do we have in here?

-We have 16.

-16?

-Yes.

Here, carrots are also on the menu.

You give different food. He like carrots. He likes bread.

-He likes bread!

-A different panda has a characteristic. Very cute!

If you give carrots, apple, they love you.

This one's a bit of a messy eater. He's got it all down his front!

He's having a whale of a time with that carrot!

This wonderful grip, which almost looks as if they've got a thumb

but it's not the thumb, is it?

The monkey, the bear cannot hold but the panda can.

-It can with...

-Just like our thumb.

Yes, it's almost unique in that respect.

Cubs like these, in the past, were born here at the breeding centre

where the birth could be closely supervised.

But that wasn't ideal.

Now, they're experimenting with a new approach.

Remote cameras and microphones are installed in the outside enclosures

so they can monitor the pregnant pandas from a distance,

allowing for a more natural birthing process, simulating the wild.

Today, they've spotted an exciting development.

Fei Fei, one of their mature females, appears to be in labour.

-Fei Fei is going to have a baby.

-She's going to have the baby?

-Yeah.

-Soon?

-Yeah, soon, maybe.

It's an unexpected opportunity for Alison to see the new birthing approach at first hand.

All the other babies at the sanctuary

were born two months ago - could it be possible that Fei Fei

is only now going into labour after such an extended gestation?

There certainly seems to be something going on with her.

Everyone else is of the same opinion,

so we just need to wait and see what happens.

If she is pregnant, it could be between six hours and ten days before she gives birth.

Since arriving in China, Alison and Simon have had very little time off.

Only in the evenings is there a chance to explore the local city, Ya'an.

Ni hao.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS NATIVE TONGUE

Can we try?

It's interesting because during the day, it looks quite drab and industrialised.

At night, everything is lit up. Everything is light.

It does transform it.

Everybody's out with their children. They seem to stay out till 10 or 11 at night.

This is when it all happens, in the evening. It's because everybody works every single day.

The time when they go out shopping and go about what we would class as our daily business, is the evenings.

They all seem to meet together, eat together and spend a lot of time together.

WOMAN SPEAKS IN HER NATIVE TONGUE

Cheers.

That's very nice.

Yeah, it's nice.

Forgetting the day job is not easy with reminders of it everywhere.

Oh. Look. Must have!

-You must! How wonderful.

-And the ear muffs.

-And the slippers.

-Can't get away from pandas, can you?

-Er, no.

-It's just not possible in Ya'an, is it?

-It seems to be panda-monium!

THEY LAUGH

The team are still monitoring Fei Fei,

whose labour seems real enough.

Birthing expert Professor Tang wants to see what's going on.

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR NATIVE TONGUE

Fei Fei is leaking in the vulva and there is a lot of water come out.

The mother continues leaking the water.

THEY SHOUT

The baby is out!

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR NATIVE TONGUE

57 minutes.

-13.57. It's very fast.

-The arrival is thrilling news.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS NATIVE TONGUE

Now Alison and Simon have come to savour the magic of a panda birth.

Hello.

The baby is in her arm.

-She's got it where?

-Here.

-Under her arm?

-Yeah. Under her arm.

She's very maternal, very...caring, immediately picking the infant up

and cradling it.

She's obviously a very good mother.

Yeah. A good mother.

If they're lucky, this time next year, Alison and Simon could be

watching Tian Tian giving birth to a precious panda cub of her own.

If that happened,

it would instantly elevate the zoo to world-class status.

For now, though, there's work to be done readying the panda enclosure.

Giant glass panels are being installed

for the best viewing experience possible.

Watch the top bit.

Exotic plants will help create an environment

that mimics the one back in China.

Stop there, stop!

-That's fine.

-Despite all the activity, no-one yet knows

when the pandas will be arriving.

Back in China, Tian Tian and Yang Guang

are now in quarantine in preparation for their departure.

It will be a wee bit of an upheaval for them. Of course it will.

They're moving house and moving house is stressful.

But we'll do everything we can

to make the journey as easy as we possibly can.

They'll settle right down.

But I'm kind of sad to leave. I love it here. It's beautiful.

Such a nice area, everywhere you turn there's pandas.

But I need to get the pandas back to Edinburgh.

The task of moving two of the world's most valuable creatures

halfway across the planet falls on the shoulders of Darren McGarry.

As the Head of Animals, he has supervised

the transportation of all the zoo's newest residents.

These bears here are very similar to how the pandas are going to be to transport.

Because they are a bear, so they are very similar.

They came to the zoo about a year or so ago

and they went into transport crates. They came from Cambodia

and then they arrived here, they flew over to the zoo.

We brought them into the house here, off-loaded them into the house.

They had to do a six-month rabies quarantine period.

They are a really popular animal.

Lots of people like to come and see bears. They are very active.

We're probably gauging on what the pandas are going to be like

from what we did when we organised this transport of these sun bears here.

We are going to have a look at these koalas.

These are another species that have their challenges

when you are organising the transport of them.

That's their crates up there.

The good thing about koalas is they are so delicate

that they get VIP treatment when you are organising to move them.

They are not like any other animal. They are treated very differently.

You will see one of our koalas here.

They way they are treated differently,

because they're so special, delicate,

they actually get to sit in the cabin of the aeroplane

so they get allocated a seat and everything

so you get full VIP treatment.

The pandas may not have their own seats

but there's no question of their VIP status.

They're going be FedEx'd in their very own panda plane.

Transporting such precious cargo is a complex business.

It will require a specially chartered Boeing 777

to jet them off to their distant destination, far away from home.

The pandas' natural habitat is the wild bamboo mountains of central China.

They once thrived here but now there are only around 1,600 left.

But that's all about to change.

Hidden away in these mountains, a quite revolution is under way

to reverse their decline.

At the heart of it is Wolong, the sister sanctuary to Bifengxia

which was once the home to over 60 pandas.

It's a panda paradise

or at least it was

until a massive earthquake hit in 2008 and devastated the panda base.

They could have lost 75% of the captive panda population

but miraculously, almost all of them survived.

Now they are rebuilding the sanctuary

to play a key role in their new master plan.

They are keeping pregnant pandas here and training them to be less dependant on humans.

Their cubs will then eventually be released into the wild

never having had human contact,

vastly increasing their chances of survival.

The Chinese have kept this programme

of releasing back into the wild low profile,

until now.

Alison is taking the long, gruelling journey through the earthquake zone

having been granted special permission to go to Wolong.

Really exciting. It's very bumpy as well.

She is one of the very few to be allowed to see

the full extent of the groundbreaking project.

-How many pandas do you have here?

-Eight.

-Four babies and four mums.

-Four babies, four mums.

Mr Woo has worked at the sanctuary since before the earthquake.

His team is experimenting with some new ideas.

A cunning disguise keeps baby pandas in blissful ignorance of the humans in their midst.

-We have to go into the enclosure.

-The enclosure.

So... Because the baby is in the enclosure.

So, you don't want the baby to know.

Right, because we don't want to be friends with babies.

So, you don't want the baby to recognise human beings.

You would wear this only when the baby is here.

No.

-When we clean the enclosures.

-OK.

Has the baby ever came down to see him in his suit?

No, we don't want to bother them.

-You want to just leave them to live as wild.

-Yeah, sure.

-That's good.

-Yeah.

Now for the most fiendish disguise of all.

So, this is the panda suit for when you have to go in

-and do something with the babies.

-Yeah.

So...

Yeah, we do this...

just...

for checking the babies.

-For health checks.

-Yeah.

For them, it's OK that you go in because you look like their mother.

Yeah, that's why. Exactly.

We don't want the baby to know humans,

-especially the keepers.

-Yeah.

The last bit.

-Put...

-Sure.

If we were raising a baby, there's a lot of options open to us.

Obviously, the guys here for the pre-release training wear a panda suit

so that the panda baby never, ever sees a human being.

It's a really good way to work round things.

You don't want the panda to become habituated to humans.

You want it to know and to think it is a panda.

Yeah, it's one of the options, is to wear a suit.

Again, one of the things we've learned here

is that from a very young age, mum leaves the baby alone

and at the moment, some of the babies here only come to her for milk and then they are off on their own.

So, if they come to you for milk and you are in a panda suit,

as far as they're concerned, you're mum and you're a panda.

It's not the first time the Chinese have released a panda back into the wild.

But when they tried it once before, it ended in disaster.

Xiang Xiang was found dead less than a year after his release.

It brought a premature end to the reintroduction programme

and sent reverberations throughout the conservation world.

This time it's going to be different.

The pandas will be taken through several phases to prepare them for release.

After two years, they will then be moved up the mountain to phase two,

still within a protected environment but with no human interaction.

Quite high. Steep.

-Getting tired?

-No.

When they are ready, the cubs will finally be released

high up in the bamboo-rich mountain tops.

-How high are we?

-2,000 metres.

-2,000 metres.

-And we're now in the bamboo.

-Yeah.

So, this kind of habitat is where you would look to release

-the babies after the training.

-Right.

-But there are wild pandas living here just now?

-Yeah.

We're standing in the middle of panda habitat.

-We have how many babies training just now?

-Four.

-Four.

How many of those would you hope to release?

-Three or four.

-Three or four will go.

-But they're with their mother just now?

-Right.

-How long will they stay with their mother?

-Two.

-Probably two.

Pandas born here will one day roam free,

and if Yang Guang and Tian Tian produce a female cub,

she too may come here.

For now, their new life at Edinburgh Zoo is just about to begin.

Good afternoon. Edinburgh Zoo has confirmed that the two giant pandas

will arrive from China this Sunday.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang will make the journey in Perspex cages

on board a specially chartered flight.

The big day has finally arrived.

Head of Animals from the zoo, Darren McGarry,

has flown out to keep an eye on proceedings.

Obviously, we're really proud to be having them coming to Scotland but also the UK as a whole.

It's the day that Iain Valentine, the man behind the complex deal,

has been working towards for five years.

It's really quite exciting and I'm really quite touched

by the huge amount of effort that goes into doing something like this.

I hadn't appreciated just the organisation

that goes in for a departure ceremony.

I know they're special animals but I didn't actually understand

the whole thing about the departure ceremony, so it's quite something.

With the eyes of the world's press upon them, everyone is feeling the pressure.

-Quite nerve-wracking, actually.

-Quite nervous watching.

-There's a lot of people here.

-Normally when you do something like that,

you wouldn't have anybody around, so it's quite nerve-wracking.

She's in the box, she's in the van, so that's good. We are relieved.

We've got a sigh of relief.

One more to go.

Once both pandas are loaded up, the real fun begins.

The leaving ceremony is a long-running tradition at Bifengxia.

I think it was all quite crazy but it's done,

it's been interesting, it's been fun.

Onto the next bit, because it's still got a bit of a journey to do yet.

The pandas will be flying from Chengdu Airport in the southwest of China.

Their crates must be kept stable. Pandas are precious cargo.

They're still under the Chinese Panda Centre's responsibility now

and once they arrive in the UK and they come to Edinburgh Zoo

then we're responsible for them, once they're actually in Edinburgh.

So, we're excited for that time, once they actually get to Edinburgh. I'm really looking forward to it.

Even the crew are getting into the spirit of things.

We were asked to put on the dress of the Scottish FedEx colours.

We know we'll enjoy coming into Scotland in the appropriate garb

to commemorate this important event.

It took us a little while to get used to putting it on correctly.

We did not want to disrespect the Scottish people.

Ian and Darren will check the pandas every half hour.

It's a long time for pandas to be airborne,

but with a jet this size,

you can fly non-stop to Edinburgh in just ten-and-a-half hours.

That's why they call it the Panda Express.

While the pandas are making their way to Edinburgh,

the panda diplomacy is stepping up a gear.

Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, keen to capitalise on the panda mania

is meeting with Vice-Premier Li in Beijing.

Can I say that your visit to Edinburgh is well-remembered,

Mr Vice-Premier.

Only the arrival of Tian Tian and Yang Guang has been more exciting

for Scotland than your visit.

Alex Salmond is not the only political leader

to grasp the status-enhancing effect of the giant panda.

President Nixon was the first Western leader to recognise it.

Quick to see the benefits, Edward Heath followed suit two years later.

At first, the Chinese gave the pandas away as gifts,

but it wasn't long before they realised their financial value.

Pandas were in such demand, they started to charge enormous amounts,

renting them out for fixed periods overseas.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang are on loan for ten years

with a rental of around £600,000 per annum.

It's a lot of money, but then there's never been a better time

to be making friends with the Chinese.

BAGPIPES PLAY

On the 4th of December 2011, panda mania reaches fever pitch

when Tian Tian and Yang Guang touch down at last on British soil.

It's a major coup for the zoo and for Scotland.

It's the moment everybody has been waiting for.

This is hugely special for Edinburgh Zoo, obviously,

and it's a real accolade for their reputation in conservation.

But it's also important in terms of the relationship between Scotland and China.

It's a hugely important relationship in terms of

our economic prospects as well as culturally and diplomatically.

All in all, this is a great occasion for Scotland

and I'm delighted to be here today, playing a part in it.

Back at the zoo, the crowds are going wild about pandas.

As the flag-waving children outside celebrate their safe arrival...

Ready? One, two, three.

..behind the scenes, there's tension.

Tian Tian may not have travelled well.

Make sure the metal shutter doesn't fall down.

-OK.

-She's out! She's out!

Gently, gently, gently, gently.

In here, Tian. In here.

-She looks better.

-She looks OK. I think she'll be fine.

Once out of her crate, Tian Tian perks up.

Go back over to you guys.

Brilliant. First panda in, feel much happier now. Just one more to go.

After almost 24 hours in transit,

it's likely that Yang Guang will be jet-lagged and disorientated.

Do you want to call him? Professor Tan? Do you want to call him?

Yang Guang...

Yang Guang.

Come here.

It's a huge relief to see him stretching his legs and settling in.

Yang Guang, this is your new house.

The first look around, smell...

Pandas, when they go to a new place,

normally they take half an hour, one hour,

to know the new place.

Walking, looking around, smell.

Then sitting down, starting to eat.

The journey's over. Mission accomplished.

And for Chief Exec Hugh Roberts, it's a moment to celebrate.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang are safely with us

and I hope now settling into their new surroundings.

One usually says of a panda that he eats shoots and leaves.

In this case, he eats shoots and arrives.

Both pandas appear in good form

but they will need close monitoring for the next 48 hours.

Basically, we've got 16 video cameras, CCTV,

that goes around the whole building,

so it looks at all of the panda areas, where the pandas are housed.

So, we have these monitors and several in our offices.

I have got one in my office.

So I can sit and look at the cameras 24 hours a day, if I wanted to.

Hello, Sweetie. How are you doing?

After everything she's been through,

Simon's keeping a close eye on Tian Tian.

Good girl, hey?

You're so beautiful. Yes, you are. Yes, you are.

You're a good girl. It's all a bit strange, isn't it?

Obviously, we're checking very closely their droppings.

Vets are obsessed with what comes out of an animal.

So we spend an awful lot of our time digging through panda poo,

amongst other things.

It is very important we know the consistency is right

because that tells us whether or not the feeding we're doing is correct.

Will the bamboo that has travelled across Europe

be to the fussy pandas' taste?

These have been in storage and in transport for about three or four days.

So, I'm looking for how curled up the leaves are...

and just basically the general health of the bamboo.

You can clearly see that even though this has been cut a few days ago,

it's still really quite lovely, to be honest.

It's not curled up at all, the leaves are fine.

So, when we get this in the misting unit, this will just be lovely.

The misting unit will just hydrate the leaves again

and keep it nice and fresh for the pandas.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang will munch their way through a staggering 70 kilos of this stuff a day.

That's the weight of the average man.

A light snack.

The bamboo has passed the taste test,

but what about Alison's panda cake?

The proof is in the pudding.

There we go.

Professor Tang and the Chinese keeper basically say

this will be the test to see if they like your cooking.

And they did, which was good.

That's what I call a contented panda.

After sleeping off their jet lag,

the pandas are finally ready to meet the public.

It's the grand opening. The enclosure's ready for its unveiling

and the shop's now groaning with panda merchandise

to tempt the public.

Anybody else's first time seeing a panda?

Everyone's eager to see the hottest couple in conservation for themselves.

It's the first day of the public viewing of the pandas

and we have a special man here to open them.

He's the first man to book for quarter past nine.

-I don't know if he's an expert at this...

-I've never done this before!

-Where do I go? Just there?

-Yup.

-Thank you!

Yay!

Thank you. Thank you very much.

The first viewing is a sell-out.

I would be delighted to answer any questions you've got

regarding pandas or the conservation at the zoo here.

Pandas are going to be transformational for the zoo.

It really does allow us to change our whole investment structure for the zoo

so that we create something really right for the 21st century.

The whole world of conservation, the whole world of zoos,

is constantly reinventing itself to be right for now and for the future

and this gives us an opportunity to be major players in that way.

The pandas hold their first British audience spellbound.

It's fantastic. I can't believe it.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang are bound to be a big success,

but it's not all about making money.

Research will now be carried out here that will help ensure

the health and well bring of future generations of pandas.

And there's the hope that one day the zoo will be blessed with a cub.

It's going to be hugely significant

if we can successfully breed an individual cub

not only because the two pandas we have here within the panda population

are genetically very important individuals

so any offspring they produce is going to be also very important

to the survival plan for pandas.

And it will be another panda to add to the growing collection of pandas

around the world that potentially could be released back into the wild.

Man's impact on the pandas' habitat threatened to wipe them out for ever.

But now, due to international collaborations like this one

with Tian Tian and Yang Guang,

combined with the expertise of the Chinese,

pandas may one day thrive again in the wild.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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