Humans in panda suits try to track down bears in the woods

Ami Vitale/National Geographic

By Clare Wilson

WHAT do you mean: “They’re not real pandas”? That get-up isn’t meant to fool you – it’s for the bears in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve, which must not get used to human contact.

Dressing up like this is designed to keep the pandas wary of people, so they steer clear of the villages and farms that dot their territory. No one knows if it works – but for added authenticity, the costumes are doused with panda pee.

Photographer Ami Vitale wore the same outfit – urine included – to take this image, part of a set that won the second prize for nature stories at this year’s World Press Photo contest. The panda keepers are trying to find a bear with a radio tracking collar that is in training for release into the wild.

Pandas once ranged across China, Myanmar and Vietnam. Now they can be found in just a few mountainous parts of China, amounting to about one-hundredth of their former habitat, with a mere 1864 animals left in the wild. But that is up from a low of about 1000 in the 1970s.

China hopes that its captive breeding programme will help. While the bears are notoriously difficult to breed, 38 cubs were born across China in 2015. The newborns are fed, weighed, massaged and generally cosseted.

Ami Vitale/National Geographic

Cubs are chosen for freedom if they seem independent, wary of humans and other animals, and are able to find food and shelter. Appreciation of cosplay is optional.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Bears in the wood”