THE nation let out a collective "uhhhh" follow- ing the news that giant panda Tian Tian was no longer pregnant.

One news website carried the story alongside a picture of "Sweetie" with her paw on her forehead in mock exasperation - which I assume was selected for maximum emotive affect.

I am sure pandas don't raise a paw to their heads in times of upset. Do they even get upset?

While babies of any endangered species being born anywhere in the world is always positive, the obsession with these animals is becoming a bit of a circus.

Allow me to recap: Tian Tian and her chosen partner Yang Guang, who are being rented from China for £600,000 a year, were supposed to mate naturally but a study of their behaviour showed they didn't see each other 'that way'.

So Tian Tian was artificially inseminated using semen from Yang Guang and frozen semen from Bao Bao, a "genetically important" but dead panda which once lived in Berlin Zoo.

Experts told us she was "showing signs of pregnancy". But sadly the odds were against her. Female pandas have a yearly window of just 36 hours to get pregnant.

This didn't stop a team of people working to try and make her conception a possibility. This week she is receiving the best possible care after losing her cub and, when possible, another attempt will be made to impregnate her.

If a cub is born, it will be returned to China after pulling in bus-loads of ticket buying visitors.

It is true the panda's have captured the hearts of the nation since they signed the lease at their Edinburgh Zoo pad in 2011. But something about their stay here makes me feel uncomfortable. I fully appreciate the conservation efforts taking place around the world in a bid to prolong the existence of animals that are endangered through poaching or destruction of their landscapes and ongoing work to preserve the habitats of animals, including pandas, so that they can continue to exist in the wild.

Rather than spending hundreds and thousands of pounds on captive breeding wouldn't giant pandas be better served if more cash was spent helping protect them in the wild?

We, the ticket-buying, panda-viewing-slot-booking, general public must take responsibility, too.

Instead of queuing up to press our noses against the glass, we could give our money directly to people working in the bamboo forests in the mountains of Western China.

But until then we will continue to be fascinated by Tian Tian's reproductive highs and lows as it can take up to four years for pandas to breed in captivity.

Just like a scene right out of spoof comedy Anchorman, the "Panda Watch" cameras are set to remain firmly trained on the Tian Tian and Yang Guang's temporary Edinburgh home.