Zoo must bear up to risks of homing pandas

PLANS to bring a pair of giant pandas to Edinburgh Zoo raise "serious animal welfare" issues and should be reconsidered, it has been claimed.

Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock said the endangered animals should not be used as "currency" between Britain and China.

Mr Hancock, who represents Portsmouth South, used a Commons motion to attack plans by the zoo to bring the breeding pair to Scotland.

Zoo representatives recently returned from China where they signed a letter of intent of bringing the pandas to Scotland.

It has been proposed that the breeding pair would be on loan to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland for ten years.

But Mr Hancock said there had been no successful reintroductions to the wild of pandas bred in captivity, claiming conservation projects were the best way to help the wild population. There are currently as few as 2000 pandas living in their wild habitats.