There's The Rub

Click here Download file to download what I admit is a pretty bad video, but it makes a point. You'll see the long bamboo pole being wielded from above giving this female panda Huamei the odd whack. (you can hear her making a mewling sound of displeasure) This was to correct her "bad habits" I was told. Firstly she likes to play with the water in the little rock pool you can see her heading towards. And her other bad habit? "Oh, masturbation." Right. anything to avoid procreative sex apparently.

Anyway, she was in heat (oestrus for the technically minded) and thus had a male panda on either side in separate cages in the hope they might hit it off. After a while, she finally decided that maybe males weren't so bad after all and lifted her tail and backed slowly to the wire mesh fence that separated her from her male neighbor Wugong. He took one look at her apparently-not-so-inviting hindquarters and headed straight to the bamboo clump in his cage for a good feed. oh, well, back to the lab for you, Huamei.