It seems the steady doses of lurid panda pornography being shown to China's giant pandas on their cozy den walls after nice candlelight dinners of tender bamboo and bubbly mineral water may be paying off.

Officials from the two national breeding centres in Southwest China's Sichuan Province have excited the zoological world with the news that the rare mammals - one of the most endangered species on the planet - are expecting a record number of cuddly cubs this year.

Whether the "bears" seeing the bare essentials has anything to do with it is anybody's guess. Who really knows what goes on in a panda's mind?

Yet, already as many as 10 females are pregnant, and veterinarians are champing at the bit to get out their surgical tools to introduce thawed-out frozen panda sperm into two dozen other female bears now on heat.

Qizhen, a four-year-old female at the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base in the provincial capital Chengdu, was named an expectant mom by zoo doctors last week. She did things the old fashioned way, having found a boyfriend among the macho panda males at the centre.

Her less amorous cousins will have to do with "surrogate" fathers and the frozen stuff.

Part of the problem, according to zoo officials, is that pandas in captivity appear to be depressed. Most have nothing to do but sit around and eat bamboo. They plump up and show little in the way of sexual desire.

"They're fat, their limbs lack strength, and they run out of gas quickly after standing up to have sex," Chinese panda expert Tang Chunxiang said at a Hong Kong conference last week.

In fact, according to zoo and forestry authority statistics, fewer than 10 per cent of the males show any interest in you-know-what, and among those who do, only about 30 per cent of their female partners end up pregnant and conceive cubs.

Tang told the Wen Wei Po newspaper that zoo workers nonetheless have been trying to get the pandas to exercise to lose some weight and buff up before the normal mating season, starting last month through May.

Last year, 19 panda cubs were born in China. Both natural and artificial insemination was used. Three cubs who died shortly after they were born.

But that's a lot better than a few decades ago when only about 30 per cent of the animals survived. Improvements in feeding and monitoring the behaviour of mothers have vastly improved things.

There are now 160 giant pandas in captivity. Estimates are that the endangered animals number just 1,000 in the wild, with most living in the high mountains around the Sichuan Basin in southwest China.

Female pandas typically begin to go on heat at about the age four or five, giving males or eager doctors just one chance to get them in a family way each year. The mamma panda's gestation period is about 160 days, with typical delivery resulting in one or two helpless tiny, tiny cubs.

Even Hua Mei, who arrived home to China from Southern California a few months ago, is getting in on the action. At the tender age of four, zoo officials say she's pretty much a virgin (they think). Having been in captivity since she was born, her parents never cared a lick about sex education.

So the innocent panda has really had an eye-opening experience in China, having been subjected to watching panda porn videos. Doctors have even taken her into areas of the panda enclosure so she could watch other bears mating - live. Zoo officials hope she'll get the idea.

We can only wish all the pandas every happiness this spring, and that the pitter patter of a little paws will be heard in panda pens come September.

The world will be a better place, panda porn or not.

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