Does panda have one in the oven?

BEIJING (Reuters) - Is she or isn't she? Word in the woods is that Hua Mei, China's first overseas-born panda now back at home, is expecting.


Hua Mei, born in San Diego Zoo but now in the traditional panda stomping ground of southern Sichuan province, has displayed all the right symptoms such as appetite loss and excessive sleeping, Xinhua news agency quoted experts as saying.


"A female panda will show symptoms usually two weeks before giving birth," an engineer at the Wolong Panda Conservation Centre was quoted as saying.


"It isn't 100 percent sure, because accurate diagnosis of pandas' pregnancy and bearing are difficult."


Five-year-old Hua Mei, or "China-America," was the cub of a panda couple leased to San Diego in 1996 as part of a research programme, Xinhua said. Low panda fertility rates in the wild are drastically reduced in captivity, it said.


Chinese forestry officials said in June that pandas were rebounding from the brink of extinction, thanks to an improved and expanded habitat, but they were not yet out of the woods

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