Ami Vitale dressed as a panda to mask human contact while capturing candid photos of Wolong’s Hetaoping center's bears. Image courtesy the artist
Zhang Hemin—"Papa Panda" to his staff—poses with cubs born in 2015 at Bifengxia Panda Base. "Some local people say giant pandas have magic powers," says Zhang, who directs many of China’s panda conservation efforts. "To me, they simply represent beauty and peace." © Ami Vitale / National Geographic
A video posted by Ami Vitale (@amivitale) on Jul 18, 2016 at 2:58pm PDT
Is a panda cub fooled by a panda suit? That’s the hope at Wolong’s Hetaoping center, where captive-bred bears training for life in the wild are kept relatively sheltered from human contact, even during a rare hands-on checkup. © Ami Vitale / National Geographic
Three-month-old cubs nap in the panda nursery at Bifengxia. A panda mother that bears twins usually fails to give them equal attention. Keepers reduce the load by regularly swapping cubs in and out—making sure each gets both human and panda-mom care. © Ami Vitale / National Geographic
In a large forested enclosure of the Wolong Reserve, panda keepers Ma Li and Liu Xiaoqiang listen for radio signals from a collared panda training to be released to the wild. Tracking can tell them how the cub is faring in the rougher terrain up the mountain. © Ami Vitale / National Geographic
