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PANDAS use sexy smells to excite potential partners, say American and Chinese
researchers. They think that giving these rare animals a chance to sniff each
other鈥檚 scents before they meet could help persuade them to mate in
captivity.

At the Wolong Breeding Center in Sichuan province, China, behavioural
biologist Ronald Swaisgood and his colleagues allowed pandas to visit each
other鈥檚 empty enclosures. The animals left scent marks and called out in
response to smells left by the previous occupant.

Males much preferred female odours, especially marks left by ovulating
females. 鈥淲e believe the odour of oestrus enhances male arousal,鈥� says Don
Lindburg who, with Swaisgood, is based at the Center for Reproduction of
Endangered Species in San Diego. The researchers suggest that in the wild,
female pandas may leave scent marks to advertise to males that they are ready
for mating.

Lindburg says that breeding programmes might be more successful if the
animals were allowed to explore each other鈥檚 enclosures and exchange scents
before actually meeting. Fewer than 30 per cent of male pandas in captivity try
to mate with females they encounter.

But Stuart Chapman, international conservation officer of the World Wide Fund
for Nature, says the findings will not help save wild pandas. 鈥淭his research
isn鈥檛 the answer, as no captive-born panda has ever been released into the
wild.鈥� The only way to conserve the species is to protect the panda鈥檚 habitat,
he says. Lindburg, however, insists that maintaining captive populations of
pandas allows scientists to discover information that may be crucial to saving
their wild counterparts.