That's an expensive bear hug! Zoo visitors get to meet and feed adorable ... - Daily Mail
- Hour-long experience at Edinburgh Zoo allows visitors to get up close and personal with the black and white creatures
- Zoo pays China £660,000-a-year to loan the mammals and spends £70,000 annually just on bamboo
By Anna Edwards
As far as bear hugs go, this one night just be the costliest ever.
Edinburgh Zoo is offering visitors a chance to become panda keepers - if they stump up £1,000 for an hour.
The new 'experience' was launched yesterday and provides panda fans with the opportunity of a private, after hours, encounter with the UK's only giant pandas.
Come play with me! Visitors can get up close and personal with male panda Yang Guang at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland
Who wouldn't want to give her a bear hug? Those willing to fork out could hand-feed Tian Tian the female panda
Visitors can now get up close to female Tian Tian (Sweetie) and male Yang Guang (Sunshine) for the first time but for a fee.
The zoo is offering the hour long panda keeper experience at £1,000 for up to four people, where visitors can meet the creatures which spend up to 14 hours a day sleeping.
Customers are being charged per panda keeper experience meaning that at it's lowest, the 'experience' costs £250 per person if four people are using it - they same amount charged for a full day keeper experience with other animals.
At it's highest, the keeper experience will still cost £1,000 even if only one person uses it.
A half an hour rhino keeper experience will only cost you £70, as does an owl, lemur or 'creepy crawly' keeper experience.
A spokeswoman for Edinburgh Zoo said: 'The panda keeper experiences are not like the other keeper experiences offered by the zoo.
'They are extremely exclusive and there is a limited number per month.'
Feed me! The experience is designed for people over the age of 16 and offers a chance to get close to the Chinese imports
The adorable, clumsy creatures have been a hit feature of Edinburgh Zoo - despite sleeping for about 14 hours a day
The giant pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo from China in December 2011 - the first pandas kept in Britain since 1994.
The Giant Panda project is funded entirely from charitable donations from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
The zoo pays the Chinese government £660,000 a year to house the black and white pair, poured £285,000 into building a special enclosure for them, and spends £70,000 a year on bamboo imported from Holland for them, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Darren McGarry, Head of Animals at Edinburgh Zoo, said: 'We're delighted to be able to offer people the chance to get closer than ever before to these fascinating, rare and iconic animals.
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Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is 99 per cent bamboo.
Pandas in the wild will occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, or even meat in the form of birds, rodents or carrion.
The giant panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.
As a result of farming, deforestation and other development, the panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived.
The panda is a conservation reliant endangered species.
'Our panda keeper experiences, which will last around an hour, are exclusive opportunities for panda fans.
'Unique private encounters, people will be able to see the giant pandas at very close proximity in the private area of their enclosure - which isn't on show to the public.
'The private audience with our keepers will also give the chance to really learn first-hand more about Tian Tian and Yang Guang.
'We hope people really enjoy and treasure this incredible and truly rare once in a lifetime experience with our giant pandas.'
The panda keeper experience allows visitors to meet one of the panda keepers and learn about the training with the pandas.
Visitors may also have the chance to feed the pandas and they will receive drinks and canapes on the panda walkway.
It had been hoped that the pair would breed cubs but attempts to encourage any romance between them has failed so far.
The keepers built private rooms linked by a tunnel for Tian Tian and Yang Guang so they could take advantage of the only 36 hour window when a female panda ovulates, but so far the duo remain just good friends.
Panda keeper experiences run are designed for people aged 16 years and over.
新闻直播间2012-04-20 大熊猫自然交配视频首次公布Giant Pandas mating
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