There’s No Panda Passion; Zoo Lends a Hand

SAN DIEGO —  The fickleness of Mother Nature is no match for the advances of science.

Shi Shi, a male giant panda at the San Diego Zoo, has again shown a lack of libido toward his female counterpart. So researchers at the San Diego Zoo decided Wednesday to artificially inseminate Bai Yun rather than pass on another year of panda procreation.

“We feel that this is the responsible thing to do,” said Donald Lindburg, a reproduction behaviorist with the zoo.

Zoo officials sedated Shi Shi to collect semen before implanting it into Bai Yun on Wednesday night, but they won’t know if Bai Yun is pregnant until late July or early August.

Pandas have a delayed implantation physiology that allows their bodies to regulate the best time to give birth.

Female pandas are fertile only one to two days a year. Researchers hoped that the pandas would mate this season after a failed attempt last year.

The two bears were shipped to the zoo from China in 1996.

Bai Yun, a playful 6-year-old female, was apparently all for it, but Shi Shi, a cranky 20-year-old male, was more interested in munching bamboo than courting his partner.