Now, we don’t want to jinx anything, but word on the street is that Hong Kong’s favorite persnickety procreator, Ying Ying the giant panda, may be pregnant.
Ocean Park, which houses Ying Ying and her panda paramour, Le Le, has announced that Ying Ying has been displaying behaviors associated with pregnancy since July, RTHK reports. However, the symptoms, such as decreased appetite and increased rest, aren’t a sure thing — pregnancy in pandas can only be confirmed with an ultrasound 14 to 17 days before the birth of a cub, so a false alarm can’t be ruled out.
Ying Ying’s journey towards motherhood has been long and fraught with obstacles. Ocean Park staff have explained that pandas have a low reproductive rate in general, and that captive pandas mate with each other 74 percent less than wild pandas.
Ying Ying and Le Le have been trying for years to get a bun in the oven, but to no avail. Ocean Park gave the panda power couple three days of privacy in April of this year to give them another shot — and also artificially inseminated Ying Ying several times just to be sure.
Last summer, Ying Ying also displayed similar signs of pregnancy but the Park confirmed in October that she was not pregnant at all.
The difficulty in conceiving was so great, it drove Ying Ying in 2015 to try seeing other pandas at the Wolong National Reserve in Sichuan province, where she and Le Le were born. She became pregnant there, but ultimately suffered a miscarriage for unknown reasons.
Ying Ying and Le Le, both 13 years old, were given to Hong Kong in 2007 as a gift from the Chinese central government to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the handover.
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