Soon Great Britain will have another renowned couple to gawk at.
As Prince William and Duchess Catherine settle into married life, the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland will welcome a breeding pair of giant pandas from China by the end of this year.
Together with Tian Tian and Yang Guan, the zoo will also be receiving the challenge of feeding its new charges.
Mainly, this will mean supplying nearly 40,000 pounds of bamboo annually.
Much of this will be imported from the Netherlands, but zoo officials have plans to grow some fifteen percent of the necessary bamboo on site.
Pandas have highly specialized dietary needs, and the zoo is concerned with seeing that Tian Tian and Yang Guan have the very best quality of bamboo, as well as a consistent supply of several different species.
Naturally their supply can't come from just anywhere.
Nevertheless, the manager of the zoo's gardens, Simon Jones, says "we have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest and offers we have received from members of the public wanting to grow and supply bamboo for us.
" I would hate to see all of that public interest go to waste when it could be a terrific opportunity for the region.
Awareness of the commercial and environmental potential of bamboo is certainly growing, but I envision that for several of those that expressed interest in donating their land and effort towards the Edinburgh Zoo their only genuine concern was with those adorable pandas, and bamboo was just an afterthought.
The zoo's commitment to growing a portion of that bamboo locally brings into focus the outstanding hardiness of bamboo along with the diversity of climates and markets in which it could grow.
No doubt the only reason why the zoo cannot anticipate to locally source more than fifteen percent of its new pandas' bamboo is the fact that the requisite growing operations are not established yet, not because a much bigger portion of that bamboo couldn't be grown in Scotland.
And it's the same for all but one of the most inhospitable regions.
The Edinburgh Zoo says that it will be creating educational projects with those that have supplied aid in growing bamboo.
But will those education projects be strictly about pandas and their diet, or will they discuss bamboo in much more common terms.
It would be nice if someone would make the most of the outpouring of interest in the crop to make people and institutions aware of the myriad of other applications for which they may nonetheless still be able to grow it.
If an innovative and panda-loving Scottish entrepreneur has been paying attention to this story, possibly he will recognize this as an opportunity to source bamboo to be harvested for use in producing viscose textiles, or as a building material, or as food for human beings as well as bamboos.
And possibly then, after a couple of years when small-scale but consistent bamboo growing operations happen to be established in the area, Edinburgh is going to be better-positioned to reduce the carbon footprint of caring for its pandas, by supplying much more than fifteen percent of that bamboo on its own.
But even fifteen percent is rather impressive coming from a location that one would most likely never believe to associate with bamboo growing.
It is a situation that can be duplicated pretty much anywhere, although it is not necessary to wait for the adorable pandas first.
In fact, it's better not to, and much preferable if the interest in bamboo comes from sincere environmental and financial concerns.
Then, any town that has a zoo and has already started growing bamboo locally will be far better ready if they ever get a pair of their own wonderfully adorable pandas.
As Prince William and Duchess Catherine settle into married life, the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland will welcome a breeding pair of giant pandas from China by the end of this year.
Together with Tian Tian and Yang Guan, the zoo will also be receiving the challenge of feeding its new charges.
Mainly, this will mean supplying nearly 40,000 pounds of bamboo annually.
Much of this will be imported from the Netherlands, but zoo officials have plans to grow some fifteen percent of the necessary bamboo on site.
Pandas have highly specialized dietary needs, and the zoo is concerned with seeing that Tian Tian and Yang Guan have the very best quality of bamboo, as well as a consistent supply of several different species.
Naturally their supply can't come from just anywhere.
Nevertheless, the manager of the zoo's gardens, Simon Jones, says "we have been overwhelmed by the amount of interest and offers we have received from members of the public wanting to grow and supply bamboo for us.
" I would hate to see all of that public interest go to waste when it could be a terrific opportunity for the region.
Awareness of the commercial and environmental potential of bamboo is certainly growing, but I envision that for several of those that expressed interest in donating their land and effort towards the Edinburgh Zoo their only genuine concern was with those adorable pandas, and bamboo was just an afterthought.
The zoo's commitment to growing a portion of that bamboo locally brings into focus the outstanding hardiness of bamboo along with the diversity of climates and markets in which it could grow.
No doubt the only reason why the zoo cannot anticipate to locally source more than fifteen percent of its new pandas' bamboo is the fact that the requisite growing operations are not established yet, not because a much bigger portion of that bamboo couldn't be grown in Scotland.
And it's the same for all but one of the most inhospitable regions.
The Edinburgh Zoo says that it will be creating educational projects with those that have supplied aid in growing bamboo.
But will those education projects be strictly about pandas and their diet, or will they discuss bamboo in much more common terms.
It would be nice if someone would make the most of the outpouring of interest in the crop to make people and institutions aware of the myriad of other applications for which they may nonetheless still be able to grow it.
If an innovative and panda-loving Scottish entrepreneur has been paying attention to this story, possibly he will recognize this as an opportunity to source bamboo to be harvested for use in producing viscose textiles, or as a building material, or as food for human beings as well as bamboos.
And possibly then, after a couple of years when small-scale but consistent bamboo growing operations happen to be established in the area, Edinburgh is going to be better-positioned to reduce the carbon footprint of caring for its pandas, by supplying much more than fifteen percent of that bamboo on its own.
But even fifteen percent is rather impressive coming from a location that one would most likely never believe to associate with bamboo growing.
It is a situation that can be duplicated pretty much anywhere, although it is not necessary to wait for the adorable pandas first.
In fact, it's better not to, and much preferable if the interest in bamboo comes from sincere environmental and financial concerns.
Then, any town that has a zoo and has already started growing bamboo locally will be far better ready if they ever get a pair of their own wonderfully adorable pandas.