One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild.

In a devastating admission, Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure.

Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity. But only five have been released into the wild, of which just three survive.

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One of the foremost panda authorities in the world has argued that a scheme to encourage breeding should be scrapped because scientists are failing to introduce the animals back into the wild

Dr Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education at the Chengdu Research Base, China, concedes that an international programme to save giant pandas has been a failure

In a move that will be seen to undermine the work of zoos, Dr Bexell, interviewed on tonight’s BBC2 Horizon documentary Should We Close Our Zoos? at 9pm, says: ‘We’ve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation.

‘So I guess right now we would almost have to say it has been quite a failure and even though many of these projects even were considered successful for short periods of time, they’ve lost ground.

‘Should we continue them? Right now I’m feeling no because I’m really worried that it’s sending the wrong message to humanity. It’s giving humanity false hope.’

Since the research base was founded in 1987, rescuing six giant pandas from the wild, around 400 pandas have been bred in captivity but only five have been released into the wild

Dr Bexell, who has also reintroduced the black-footed ferret into the American West and the golden lion tamarind into Brazil, believes that zoos are misleading the public about the benefits of captive breeding programmes.

She blames the world’s growing population and consumerism for driving pandas out of their natural habitat.

‘I think we need to be brutally honest with the world that science is not just going to clean up the mess for you all,’ adds Dr Bexell, who is co-author of the book Giant Pandas: Born Survivors. ‘We all have to get behind this. We all have to be a part of the solution.’

Dr Bexell said: ‘We’ve learned a lot, filled volumes of journals and text books but we have not made significant headway in terms of conservation'