Mad about the bear: why are we fascinated by pandas?

SO, WHAT'S black and white and has got us far more excited than the Royal Wedding ever could? It's got to be the giant panda, or more specifically a particular breeding pair of giant pandas. Since it was confirmed that this other royal couple – Tian Tian and Yangguang – are to take up residence at Edinburgh Zoo, the pair have barely been out of the headlines.

Why do these beasts elicit such excitement and curiosity? Why, when Edinburgh Zoo is already home to a spectacular array of lions and tigers and bears (oh my) are these animals guaranteed to get the turnstiles spinning at record speeds?

Author Henry Nicholls will attempt to answer these questions in his talk, The Way of the Panda, as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival this evening. Nicholls, a panda expert, is fascinated by our fascination with pandas and will set out to explore the political and historical significance of these real-life cuddly toys, whose story incorporates politics, corruption, death and scandal.

Indeed everything but – if one of the many myths surrounding them is to be believed – sex.

Pandas have a rather undeserved reputation for being bad at bonking.

Then there's the fact that, thanks in part to a freak gene that means they probably can't taste flesh, they're carnivores who only eat bamboo. As such, the average panda has to spend half its day sitting around munching on bamboo in order to ingest enough calories. In short, the panda seems to be something of an evolutionary folly.

So why, when this celibate vegetarian appears to be unwilling to play its own part in the propagation of the species, do we revere it above all other endangered animals? "Of course, there are the basic aesthetic explanations," explains Nicholls. "There's the baby-like body proportions, the big round eyes and fluffy ears, the fact that they're quite playful, particularly when they're young, that they're not fierce. But there are loads of other creatures which have never reached the appeal of this one, so that begs the question 'why the panda?' I think it's for a series of historical quirks. A sequence of historical events propelled the panda into quite a formidable cultural position. There's a whole series of events, but history could just have been different, and then we wouldn't revere the panda as we do."

One such pivotal event was the communist party coming to power in 1949 in the People's Republic of China. They were looking to create a national symbol for the new modern China, and needed something which was strongly, identifiably Chinese, but with no connections to the country's imperial past. With all evidence suggesting that humans have been aware of the giant panda's existence for less than 150 years, it seemed like a perfect choice.

"The panda was only formally discovered in 1869 and there is no artistic rendition of it until the 20th century," says Nicholls. "This was very important for the story of the panda because it had no associations with imperial China. It was already obvious that it looks great, and the fact that it was rare and difficult to spot meant that there was a sense of allure around this mysterious creature, this big, big mammal that you can't see."

It wasn't just the communist party who decided to take the panda on as their symbol. In the 1960s, the West got on board when the panda became the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund. Ironically, they didn't choose the animal because it was endangered – at that point no-one really knew that it was – but primarily because it was beautiful, eye-catching, and black-and-white, therefore perfect for printing on their literature.

Indeed it was 18 years before the charity engaged in any panda work.

Advertisers quickly got on board too. The panda's image has been used to sell electronic goods, fizzy drinks, biscuits, liquorice and cigarettes.

Among other reasons given by scientists as to why we are so obsessed with this particular creature is that they remind us of ourselves. They have a special "pseudo thumb", which is actually a modified wrist bone, that helps them to tackle their food. The way they sit to eat is similar to the way a human sits on the floor, and so it's easier for us to anthropomorphise them.

Additionally, the way in which the black spots on their faces make their eyes look bigger reminds us of children, something scientists refer to as "neoteny" which refers to adult animals who retain juvenile characteristics. We respond to animals whose characteristics mimic those of our own young: a large head, big eyes, a high forehead and a round, babyish body, not to mention their playful nature.

It was during the 1970S that pandas and politics began to merge, when the Chinese government began to offer them as gifts them to other nations, loaning more than 20 pandas to countries including the US, France and Britain. It's a practice which continues in a lesser form today, but one which still involves those at the highest echelons of politics. Alex Salmond, Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown, Boris Johnson and members of the royal family were all involved in lobbying for the loan of Tian Tian and Yangguang.

Edinburgh Zoo, like all other zoos who are loaned a pair of breeding pandas, will have to pay around 300,000 annually to China for the privilege, money which goes towards conserving the species in the wild.

The sum is expected to be easily covered by admission charges and the sale of merchandise, though Nicholls says that the pandas' arrival at Edinburgh Zoo will be of benefit to the species "only indirectly".

"For every benefit you could imagine that might come from having pandas in your zoo, there is a cost," he says. "It's a high-risk venture bringing a panda to your zoo, particularly in Britain. There is undoubtedly an educational value, just because of the symbolism they have, and in the West the panda is very much a conservation symbol, so they can inspire people, and expose them to a conservation message, which really is one of the only benefits. The cost of that is that it's in danger of simplifying conservation, which is very complicated."

When the Chinese government first started loaning out pandas, the receiving zoo had little or no say as to how their money was spent.

This resulted in corruption in the 1980s with much of the money simply being pocketed. Today the receiving zoo can make more demands as to how the money is spent, however much of it goes towards captive, not wild pandas.

"This is using the logic that research and preservation of captive pandas benefits wild pandas," says Nicholls. "It does, but only very indirectly. If you really wanted to benefit wild pandas then you would spend the money on the wilderness that remains. The birth of baby pandas in captivity is always cited as a benefit but that is a complete red herring. More captive baby pandas sounds great, but they are confined to a life in captivity until we can get to a point where we can reintroduce pandas into the wild. Even then, do we want to reintroduce pandas into the wild? Most people assume it's a logical thing to do but is there any evidence that there is sufficient bamboo forest to take more pandas? So we go ahead with reintroductions just because it seems the right thing to do when actually it could be harmful to conservation, particularly because it costs so much money to perform a successful reintroduction." A reintroduction has been tried only once, in 2006, and the male panda was killed by other wild pandas very quickly. A new technique, being attempted at the moment, is to introduce four pregnant females into a very large, but still enclosed, area, so that when their babies are born they will never have known captivity nor had any human contact.

Conservationists hope the approach will work, but the fact remains that the panda we know and love today, the image which sells everything from products to conservation itself, is one of a captive animal. So reclusive is this species that we didn't know of its existence just 150 years ago, and even today scientists have no idea how many remain in the wild. The panda we've fallen in love with is a caged one, but it's their wild cousin we should be focusing on. Our obsession with the panda continues, but as ever, the issue is far from black and white.

• Henry Nicholls' talk, The Way of the Panda, will take place as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival at the Informatics Forum this evening at 8pm, with tickets costing from 6. Visit sciencefestival.co.uk for details.