Tian Tian "raped" (aka artificially inseminated) to justify having pandas at Edinburgh Zoo

Call me old-fashioned but what is going on in Edinburgh, under the guise of furthering scientific knowledge and perhaps also of trying to justify the significant cost of keeping two Giant Pandas 'on loan' from the Chinese Government for a time-limited period in the Scottish capital, is nothing more nor less than rape.

We are told that whilst the male, Yang Guang, was "in the mood", his female semi-companion, Tian Tian, apparently is not, despite her hormone levels having been tested and found to have risen to a level appropriate for mating. Despite being "interested", Yang Guang has it seems behaved like whatever is the Giant Panda equivalent of a "perfect gentleman" and not attempted to force himself on Tian Tian and in any case she would probably have resisted his advances if he had tried - despite their cuddly appearance, pandas are apparently quite aggressive creatures.

We are vouchsafed the information that, apart from swapping the two around between their normal quarters, they were "able to interact with a grate keeping them apart" - but still Tian Tian has avoided giving Yang Guang any come hither signs. Like it or not, she seems simply not to be interested. However, the "scientists" (aka "torturers") in charge of this mixture of barbarity or so-called scientific endeavour, are in reality hauling these two unfortunate creatures from one side of the world to the other, courtesy of the tyrannical Chinese Government, thereby colluding in a political game with the two Giant Pandas being no more than pawns in Beijing's influence-peddling. If there was real interest in enhancing to the maximum the chances of these animals breeding then they would be left alone to their own devices in their natural habitat, or at least as close to their natural habitat as possible, not hauling them around the world to be gawped at by the public and forever probed by "scientists".

If these were two human creatures this would rightly be classed as slavery and gross mistreatment of both of them and rape of the female in particular. That is the truth, however much the scientific cloak surrounding this whole circus seeks to mask it.