Zoo team get their teeth into panda talks

A MAGNIFICENT river runs through the Wolong area, in the Sichuan province of China – it is breathtakingly beautiful.

Wolong is also home to one of China's most important research and conservation centres dealing with the giant panda, which remains one of the world's most endangered species despite the success of breeding programmes at reserves like this one.

It is here where Edinburgh Zoo officials clinched the first stages of a landmark deal to bring two giant pandas to Scotland, which if successful would see them joining just three other zoos in Europe holding the mammals.

Upon arriving at the centre we are greeted by the deputy director of Wolong, Wang Pengyan, and immediately taken to see the pandas.

The first sight of them is striking. The only pandas I'd seen before were at Atlanta Zoo in the United States, and those were kept in glass enclosures separating them from the public.

These pandas are at eye-level and their habitat is mostly open, with only a small gap separating you from the pandas.

It's still early and the reserve is bustling with keepers cleaning the animals' homes and setting out fresh bamboo. Most of the pandas are happily tearing into their breakfast and munching away, snapping the bamboo as if it were no tougher than a stick of celery.

The majority of the enclosures have several pandas in them and most are sitting close to each other as they eat, with some taking a break from food and rumbling around playfully with their mates.

We look around the reserve for a couple of hours and I fill memory card after memory card on my digital camera, enjoying the proximity and playfulness of the animals while taking pictures.

Finally, we settle in around the baby panda enclosure. Wolong has made great strides over the years in its breeding programme – we are looking at 13 babies right now. Most of these little ones were born in August and September of last year and weigh around 80lbs.

I'm startled when Wang Pengyan asks me if I would like to go in and play with the babies and get some photographs. Feeling like I have hit the panda lottery, I accept his invitation.

I'm escorted around the back of the enclosures, where I'm asked to wash my hands and put on a gown. Then I'm taken into their houses and out into the sunshine and their world.

I'm not sure how much interaction I am allowed to have and the man accompanying me speaks no English. But as I creep closer, the pandas, who have been cheerfully playing with each other, begin to take notice of me.

One bounds up to me in an unsteady baby run. I look at the keeper and make a gesture asking if I can pet the little one. He smiles and gestures "yes". Their fur is very dense and coarse, but soft. One little guy has been in the stream and as I bend down to pet him I'm quickly soaking wet, as he's decided to put his front paws on my lap.

Quickly, I'm surrounded by baby pandas keen to play with me, as if I was one of their own. My ankles are being bitten as well as my hands – not aggressively, but in a playful way, although 13 baby pandas at once is a lot to handle.

One little fella creeps up behind me and pounces, causing me to rock forward. The keeper comes over and begins to pull the babies off, but they have other ideas and jump back to bite my legs quicker than he can get them away. The keeper and I are both laughing now.

I then spend a few minutes running from the pandas, much as you would from a human child that can crawl and who wants to "get you".

Finally playtime is over for all of us. After I clean up, we're invited to meet Zhang Hemin, director of the centre, which is at the heart of China's programme of panda conservation and captive breeding.

We sit at a large conference table – four Chinese men from the reserve are on one side and the four from the UK on the other. The director gives us a "warm welcome" and thanks us for coming. David Windmill, Edinburgh Zoo's chief executive, begins by thanking the Chinese group for their hospitality.

The conversation goes back and forth, through an interpreter, for several minutes and is filled with pleasantries, but there is a very specific purpose on both sides. Then, the director asks our intentions regarding the pandas.

David explains how much the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which runs the capital's zoo, would like to have a giant panda, and stresses the importance of education and conservation as it pertains to the panda.

One of the things that is very important to Wolong and the Chinese government is the exchange of information regarding the giant panda. The zoos that currently have pandas all do research and contribute to their care in different ways.

The director seems pleased and says he would like to offer a letter of intent to begin the process of helping the RZSS acquire the pandas for Edinburgh Zoo. It is written in Chinese and thus requires translation. We are invited to lunch and to take a scenic walk while this is done.

After lunch we're taken to see a magnificent building that has just been erected at the centre and are then taken on a hike up into the mountains where the wild pandas live.

The hill is steep and treacherous, with many broken fences and signs warning of falling rocks. The river rushes through the hills; the whole place is magnificent. The guide and I are lagging behind while the men in our group bound up the hill. I stop to rest and take photos of the river and small waterfalls.

Finally we are taken back to the director's office where everything is waiting. After reviewing the three pages of the letter of intent, David Windmill signs this monumental document.

Specific details are still to be worked out, but you can tell by the simplicity of the letter that this is more a gift of friendship than a commercial transaction.

The signing of the document elicits as much excitement from the Chinese side as ours. These pandas are not merely animals to them, they are something more. And as such if they come to Edinburgh, they will be a gift of a beloved animal.