Zoo looks for staff with an interest in bear necessities of life

Edinburgh Zoo is looking for 12 to 15 full-time employees to work at its new Giant Panda enclosure as it prepares for the arrival of a pair from China later this year.

The jobs will involve giving educational talks about the pandas at the £250,000 purpose-built enclosure and answering visitors’ questions.

The move comes as Alison Maclean, headkeeper of the giant pandas for the zoo, prepares to head to China to spend three weeks getting to know Tian Tian and Yang Guang at the Bifengxia Panda Base in Sichuan Province before they are sent to Edinburgh. She will remain there until next month, to learn about pandas’ daily habits and breeding patterns.

She will even wear her Edinburgh Zoo keeper uniform each day to familiarise the pandas with the outfit.

“Pandas can be quite sensitive animals, and quite sensitive to change,” she said. “I really need to get to know these pandas inside out and get to a stage where, when I come in to see them in the morning they think, ‘Oh, it’s her’, not ‘Who is this strange person?’ ”

Maclean will also learn some words of Mandarin that the pandas understand, as well as hand signals used for basic commands such as getting the pandas to open their mouths or hold up their paws so the keepers can check for injuries. She will also be on the watch for any signs that the pair may be ready to breed.

“You have to be able to spot the slightest changes in behaviour,” she said. “We have ways of building up the relationship between the two before they even get together but I will have to know the female well enough that I can tell when she comes into season, and there may well not be many indicators to that at all.”

The panda team will be put in place ahead of the animals’ arrival in Edinburgh. A date has still to be set but it is believed that they will arrive before Christmas.

Grant Law, panda project director at the zoo, said: “We don’t expect people to have any knowledge of pandas, that will come, but we want someone who enjoys working with animals to work in a zoo environment.”

The successful candidates will have a short induction in “panda school” where they will be taught about panda behaviour and habits, and spend time with the panda keepers.

Maclean, who leaves for China on Tuesday, said she was both nervous and excited about becoming the pandas’ headkeeper. “It’s a huge responsibility,” she said. “They are a gift from the people of China and the Chinese government to Britain, and I have the responsibility of the day-to-day care and management of them. It kind of lays heavy as it’s a massive undertaking, but at the same time, it’s such a privilege.”