CHONGQING — Er Shun and Ji Li have a lot riding on their hunched, furry, five-year-old shoulders.

They’ve never met. They live in separate cities.

Yet they’ve been genetically matched as potential lovers.

And they are soon to have a 10-year honeymoon in Canada as the two giant pandas selected by China to be loaned as a gesture of “friendship.”

Theirs is a courtship about to unfold at the Toronto and Calgary zoos, starting sometime in 2013.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared they were an apt symbol of the China-Canada relationship he says he has taken to a new level.

All of this could make it awkward when it comes time to mate during a once-a-year, 24-hour window where a female bear can become impregnated.

Er Shun — whose name is roughly translated as Number Two Smoothness (because his mother had a difficult labour with the birth of her first cub) — lives here, at the Chongqing Zoo.

He performed fabulously for his first Canadian photo-op as the bamboo-crunching backdrop to Harper’s last China news conference on this trip.

Ji Li (translated as Successful Achievement or Successful and Pretty) lives in Chengdu.

Both have been raised by their parents, said Calgary Zoo president Clement Lanthier.

That bodes well, he said, for their ability to “transmit maternal behaviour” — attach to a newborn and be good parents, or not reject any offspring should the Canadian-based breeding program go well.

But all will not be left up to nature.

Lanthier says Ji Li’s fertility will be tracked by hormone testing of urine and feces, and when the time is ripe, vets could choose to artificially inseminate her — with the semen of up to four different males, every six hours in the crucial 24-hour period.

If she gets pregnant, and gives birth to a panda cub, DNA testing could determine the successful father.

Lanthier and the Toronto Zoo’s CEO John Tracogna said the panda pair are a boon for promoting wildlife conservation and education.

As rare, endangered animals (there are only 2,500 in the world), they’re expected to be a huge draw for visitors, and the costs to keep them should be offset by admission, merchandising and sponsorship deals.

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There is a $1 million a year payment to be made to China. On top of that are the costs for zookeepers, vets, and the design of special accommodations to provide the humidity they enjoy. Canadian cold isn’t expected to be trouble for the bears, whose natural habitat is in the mountains of China.

Enormous amounts of bamboo must be shipped, however, likely from the U.S., at an expected annual cost of $200,000.

Now, preparations begin in earnest.

There are Canadian zookeepers and vets to be trained by Chinese experts who will also come here in the early going to ensure a doubly smooth transition.

Pandas can be vicious, and “they’re not pets, they’re still wild animals,” said Lanthier.

Some zookeepers bear the scars of mistakes in handling.

Asked to explain why all the hype over a couple of bears — after all, northern cod are also rare and endangered and could be used as PR for conservation purposes — Lanthier gushed.

“They’re pretty, they’re cute, they’re round, and the way they sit, the way they move, the way they eat, it’s very anthropomorphic (their behaviours have human characteristics). So because of that human (aspect) we love them.

It’s the same way we love penguins because they’re almost biped, they walk like humans.

“That’s why these species are charismatic, we can identify ourselves in those animals. That’s why we love them.”

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