Birmingham Nature Centre red panda Ming Ming sent away for sex on a long dirty weekend

Apr 4 2010 by Graham Young, Sunday Mercury

SOWING wild seed is the kind of speed-dating offer any red-blooded male would probably fancy.

But for Birmingham Nature Centre’s red panda Ming Ming it’s become an international rescue mission.

He’s been sent off on LOVE-MAKING duty to the Welsh Mountain Zoo, near Colwyn Bay.

Never one to ‘panda’ for attention in the West Midlands, the four year-old furball was the star attraction at the Edgbaston reserve after arriving from the Lake District as part of the European Endangered Species Programme.

Visitors would typically find him resting up a tree with at least one eye half-shut, but hundreds of people would still come to take pictures.

After all that dozing, Ming Ming is now expected to use some of his pent-up energy to satisfy the opposite sex.

But he’ll have to mend his lazy ways.

Although his visit is longer than a dirty weekend, he’s believed to have just two months to befriend his new Welsh mate, otherwise he’ll have to wait another year before she’ll let him try again.