Getting pandas to reproduce at all in captivity has been a huge challenge. It doesn’t take a huge amount of progress over zero to legitimately claim “better”, and this is starting to actually become a reasonably well understood problem rather than a mystery. It’s progress worth applauding even it if isn’t yet a complete solution.
If they can crack cheetah reproduction in captivity, I’ll stand up and cheer; Cheetahs don’t breed without lots of open space to chase each other across; apparently physical stress has something to do with triggering appropriate endocrine cycles, which is part of why cheetahs are so highly endangered (and have so little genetic variation) even in the wild. As far as I know, biologists haven’t yet figured out what those triggers are… which is a pity both from the point of view of preserving an amazing species and (more selfishly) because cheetahs are the one big cat which can be reliably domesticated.
