Bamboo plantation to be created for pandas

THEY eat shoots - and then some. A sprawling plantation of bamboo is to be created in Scotland to feed the pair of giant pandas destined for Edinburgh Zoo.

The ten-acre plantation will be stocked with five species of the plant, which grows up to four metres tall, to sustain Tian Tian and Yuangguang after they arrive this year.

The hungry duo, who were formally gifted to the UK by China last week, will need to be fed up to 100 kilos of the Asian plant every day.

Zoo staff are scouring Scotland for suitable sites for the bamboo forest, which will be planted in the coming months. Volunteers will also be asked to donate bamboo from their own gardens.

"We will need to grow a large quantity," said Iain Valentine, director of animals, conservation and education at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which owns Edinburgh Zoo. "A ten-acre site should keep us going for the entire time the pandas are with us."

The plantation will take two years to grow, forcing zoo officials to import bamboo until the pandas' larder has matured. Initially, about a tonne of bamboo is to be shipped in from Germany every fortnight.

Valentine said one option was to grow the plant at the zoo's sister park - the Highland Wildlife Park - which is located on a 230-acre site near Kingussie.

Edinburgh Zoo, which is converting a former gorilla enclosure to house the pair, has held trial runs to ensure the imported supply can be guaranteed, even during severe weather. Two pallets were imported during the cold snap in December and reached the zoo in time.

But Valentine added: "Usually, when this supplier ships the bamboo, he only has to go as far as Germany to Austria. By the time the bamboo arrived in the UK, the top part of it, which was not wrapped, had lost a lot of its moisture.

"We may decide to transport it using one of the flower carriers who travel across Europe as it may arrive in better condition."

In Berlin, zoo officials have recruited volunteers who grow bamboo in their gardens to help boost supplies. Valentine said he believed the idea could be replicated in Scotland.

"We think there are a lot of people who would want to donate their bamboo," he said, adding that some gardeners had supplied eucalyptus leaves to feed koala bears. "Once bamboo begins to grow, it really takes off, so in a lot of cases, they will be keen to get rid of it."