Not again ... Scots panda isn’t pregnant

HOPES that a panda cub would be born at Edinburgh Zoo have been dashed for the sixth consecutive year.

Early tests had indicated that giant panda Tian Tian was pregnant and would give birth this summer to the first panda cub to be born in Britain.

But yesterday Iain Valentine, of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: ‘Tian Tian will not give birth this year. Our tests show that her hormone levels and behaviour have returned to normal as the breeding cycle ends for this year.’ Edinburgh Zoo has leased Tian Tian and a male, Yang Guang, from China for a decade at a cost of thousands of pounds. Attempts by keepers to get them to mate failed, and five years of IVF have also been unsuccessful.