Panda porn pays off

Scientists say a bid to encourage giant pandas to breed by showing them 'panda porn' has paid off.

They claim to have sparked a baby boom among the endangered animals by showing them DVDs of pandas mating.

"It works," Zhang Zhihe, a leading Chinese expert, told the Xinhua news agency.

Pandas are notoriously poor breeders and the 'panda porn' movies were just one of many techniques used to encourage them to breed.

In the first 10 months of this year 31 cubs were born in captivity in China and 28 survived, said Zhang.

That's an increase from 12 births in 2005 and just nine in 2000. Of this year's births, 14 came through natural breeding, while artificial insemination or a combination of the two produced the rest.

Now comes the next test - getting the trick to work outside China.

The day of reckoning will come in January, when Prasertsak Buntragulpoontawee hopes male Chuang Chuang and partner Lin Hui will mate in Thailand.

"It is the same idea as chimpanzees seeing people smoke and then copying it," says the Thai researcher.