Wild pandas have been caught on camera mating for the first clip in the brumous wood of the Qinling Mountains in China . Not only does the footage show pandas as we ’ve never seen them before , but it also provides invaluable insights into why pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity .
The stunning footage ( below ) was tear by Formosan movie maker Yuanqi Wu and Jacky Poon as part of the young PBS nature documentaryPandas : Born to be Wild , which premiere on October 21 .
The pair spent three eld in the steep Qinling Mountains with scientist and rangers attempting to document the knotty courtship and belligerent behaviors of giant Ailuropoda melanoleuca . as luck would have it , their crusade pay off when the squad managed to witness the uncommon chronological succession of a fertile female being struggle over by two male . After an arduous battle and weeks of courtship , the deed was finally done and the younger male was observed successfully mating with the female .
It ’s consider that this lengthy courtship demeanor involvingroaring , embrangle , scent - mark , and brawl might have some rolein spark the female person ’ ovulation . However , it ’s an number that ’s almost impossible to replicate outside a wild environment , which could excuse why pandas often have difficultness engender in captivity . After a decade of prove , two pandassuccessfully cover at a zooin Hong Kong earlier this year , but this is considered a rarity .
Beyond the scarcely see suit and mating conduct , the docudrama also sheds some light on other aspects of the bears ' lifestyle . Pandas have a reputation for beingplayful and cuddly , but risky pandas are surprisingly aggressive and stanchly nonsocial , except during mating season when the bear travel huge distances to see company .
“ The most surprising behavior that I ’ve learned is how far wild panda travel , specially in their mating season , ” Poon toldPBS . “ I learned from ledger and from research that pandas quell in one area , in particular , to feed on bamboo and that they ’re solitary . However , over the mating season , their district greatly overlap and they travel for tens of klick a day in search of the right mate . ”
aboriginal to a few low sliver of south - central China , giant cat bear ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca ) be on a diet of almost nothing but bamboo shoots and farewell . Since bamboocontains very short nutritionary note value , pandasmust spend around 14hours eatingup to 38 kilograms ( 84 hammer ) of shoots every day to touch their energy needs . The IUCN Red Listconsiders the species “ vulnerable ” to extinction and estimates that there are few than 1,000 mature adult be in the wild . Other more optimistic estimation say there are2,000 individuals in the state of nature , but either way , the species is still in trouble .
This new selective information may help keepers get the notoriously unromantic bear in the mood more often .
