Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen/FacebookAfter nearly three years, a Dutch zoo has achieved its prime goal: getting two pandas to have sex.
The giant panda has long been endangered, with the WWF estimating last year that there are 1,864 pandas in the wild in China (however, fortunately, this is up from around 1,000 in the 1970s).
When a facility is host to a male and female panda, reproduction is obviously the ideal result for the species. And, for this animal park in the Netherlands, they managed to convince the pair to get it on – and even took a snap to mark the occasion.
Geen Blue Monday in Ouwehands Dierenpark! Zaterdag 18 januari heeft namelijk de eerste paring tussen reuzenpanda’s Wu…
Posted by Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen on Monday, January 20, 2020
As per Dutch News, Xing Ya and Wu Wen arrived at the specially-built enclosure in Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen back in May 2017.
Zoo officials have been doing whatever they reasonably can to encourage the two pandas to mate over the past two years, but only recently found success.
Posted by Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen on Tuesday, January 7, 2020
The zoo wrote on their Facebook page yesterday, January 20 (translated into English):
No Blue Monday at Ouwehands animal park! On Saturday January 18, the first mating between pandas Xing Ya and Wu Wen took place!
The panda carers have been working towards this special moment since the arrival of the panda in 2017. Several measures have been taken for and behind the scenes to stimulate mating. The next few weeks will be exciting. The hormones in the urine of Wu Wen are monitored daily and will have to tell if it has been a successful mating.
The zookeepers managed to catch the amazing (and very private) moment on camera – watching two pandas go at it after a long plight of trying to instigate sexual congress.
The animal park thought they were in with a chance of mating back in March last year – however, at the time, Xing Ya was actually too young to properly mate.
Een reuzenpanda eet héél veel bamboe op een dag. Ze eten bijna de hele dag door. Bezoeker Wendy van Meel maakte deze foto van Wu Wen en is verkozen tot foto van de week! 📸
Posted by Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen on Friday, December 27, 2019
However, that didn’t stop extensive measures being taken for the future: zookeepers spread each panda’s urine in the other’s sleeping area, as well as showing videos of other pandas mating to Xing Ya. To effectively get the job done, the panda was also trained to stand on his back feet for intercourse.
There’s an extraordinarily slow ‘mating window’ for pandas – females are only fertile for three to seven days every year (so it’s pretty bloody fortunate they fancied a shag). Following their successful coitus, Wu Wen’s urine will be tested daily to see if she’s pregnant.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.