Bye bye to Edinburgh's giant pandas

Tian Tian enjoying a last snack and a lie down in her UK home before heading back to China.

Visitors to Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland will say goodbye to giant pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang on Thursday.

They have lived in the UK since 2011 but will be returning to China in December.

Preparations are underway to safely send them home but for security reasons, the date of their departure will be kept under wraps.

The pair were originally only supposed to stay for 10 years, but the unique loan deal was extended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Zookeeper Michael Livingston has been caring for the pandas for the last 12 years and said it will be a "sad day".

However, he will be accompanying the bears on their long journey back home.

"I am very happy to be going with them and feel lucky so it's quite nice I get to end that with them," he told BBC Scotland.

Their carers were hoping Tian Tian and Yang Guang would produce panda cubs but eight attempts to make Tian Tian pregnant have failed.

Michael said he has really got to know their personalities over the years, saying Yang Guang is a "people panda" and loves interacting with the keepers.

But Tian Tian "likes things her own way".

Yang Guang is apparently more of a "people panda" than his female room mate

Visitors have been really keen to see the creatures, as within a year of them arriving, ticket sales for the zoo increased by percent.

Those ticket sales will have helped pay the reported £790,000 a year that the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) pays to the Chinese government for the loan of the bears.

Feeding and caring for them is very expensive too as they eat bamboo for around 12 hours per day.

Michael said he had to become a bamboo expert very quickly when they arrived.

"Getting our head around the bamboo was one of the biggest things. We quickly learned there was a seasonality of the species they like. Some species they won't eat at certain times of the year."

The China Wildlife Conservation Association said that the country was now "well-prepared to welcome them back".

When they arrive, the pandas will begin a month's quarantine at the China Giant Panda Conservation and Research Centre in the Sichuan province.