Sweetie And Sunshine Prepare For Life In UK

Edinburgh Zoo is about to take delivery of two of the rarest animals on the planet - a pair of giant pandas on loan from the Chinese government.

Sunshine and Sweetie - Yangguang and Tian Tian in Chinese - are both seven-years-old. They have grown up together in the misty mountains of southwest China.

On Sunday they will embark on a 5,000 mile journey to Scotland, where they will become star exhibits at the Edinburgh Zoo.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland will pay more than £600,000 a year for the loan of the pandas, plus another £70,000 on imported bamboo. The pair eat 18,000kg of the plant every year.

Sunshine and Sweetie will fly to the UK on a specially fitted Fedex cargo plane, along with their "nanny" Xie Hao.

Mr Xie has raised the two since birth, and will stay with them in Edinburgh for a month before returning home to China.

"I've looked after them since they were little, so it will be painful being separated from them," he told Sky News.

"Sweetie is more sensitive, more of an introvert because she's a girl. But Sunshine is braver, so he may find it easier to adapt."

Sunshine and Sweetie will be the first pandas to live in Britain in nearly 20 years, and the first ever to be kept in captivity in Scotland.

The hope is that they will produce a cub during their 10-year stay.

Pandas are notoriously unwilling to reproduce in captivity. The Chinese breeding programme has used viagra, herbal medicine and artificial insemination in its efforts to increase panda numbers.

At one point keepers even resorted to "panda porn" - showing the animals videos of other members of their species copulating.

To help encourage the process in Edinburgh , the zoo has built them a new enclosure that includes three dens, a bedroom and a viewing platform.

If Sunshine and Sweetie do produce a baby it will be the first ever panda cub born in Britain.

:: The pandas will be on show from December 16.