Will efforts to help Hong Kong’s giant pandas Ying Ying and Le Le reproduce bear fruit? Mainland Chinese experts lend a paw to Ocean Park’s breeding efforts
- Specialists from Sichuan province will work with caretakers at Ocean Park to help the two mammals reproduce
- Hong Kong has yet to succeed in reproducing giant pandas following the mammals’ fruitless attempts since 2011
A team of reproduction experts from mainland China have arrived in Hong Kong to assist Ocean Park in its efforts to help the city’s two giant pandas, Ying Ying and Le Le, breed.
The specialists from Sichuan province would work with caretakers at the theme park to help the two mammals reproduce, Huang Shan, the head of panda management at the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda’s Dujiangyan base, on Thursday said.
The collaboration would focus on technologies and preparation work involved in the breeding process, he added.
“Breeding for Ying Ying and Le Le is complicated due to a number of factors such as temperature, environment and the lack of available mates,” he said, noting that the species’ breeding season ran from July through September.
He said male pandas living in the wild fought with competitors and only the winners would breed with female counterparts.
An Ocean Park spokeswoman said two experts from the Dujiangyan centre and the Ya’an Bifeng Valley centre arrived in Hong Kong last week.
While the two pandas tried mating naturally and underwent an artificial insemination procedure in March, the spokeswoman said there was no chance of Ying Ying becoming pregnant this year.