Researchers dressed as pandas introduce cubs to wild

It may look as if they have escaped from a Disney theme park or a children's party, but underneath these furry giant panda costumes lurk some of China's leading conservationists. The dressing up is just not for fun, say scientists, but an essential part of China's ambitious strategy to reintroduce captive-bred Giant Pandas back into the wild.



It is not yet clear if the Pandas are fooled by the disguises, but researchers at China's Wolong Panda reserve in Sichuan Province, say that captive-bred cubs must live devoid of all human contact if they are to have any chance of survival.

Earlier attempts at reintroducing captive-bred pandas to the wild ended in disaster in 2006 when Xiang Xiang, a male cub who was supposedly trained to adapt to life in the wild, was found dead 10 months later, apparently killed by other wild pandas. In a new strategy, earlier this year conservationists released four pregnant Pandas into a protected area of Sichuan forest in order to prepare their future cubs for life in the wild.



In these pictures researchers at Wolong's Hetaoping Research and Conservation Center take the temperature of a four-month-old cub before carefully returning him to the 'wild' where he is monitored by 24-hour CCTV. Although notoriously fussy when it comes to mating, China has in recent years made great strides in its captive-breeding panda program, and this year attained the "magic 300" number of captive-bred animals, the target for starting to reintroduce them to the wild.