Possibly the highlight of our trip so far, we came to Chengdu to see the pandas and we were not disappointed: we had one glorious, panda-filled day. These pandas are part of China’s flagship panda breeding programme, which aims to boost the number of giant pandas in captivity before starting reintroduction programmes into the wild. As such, we learnt more than we were expecting to about the various methods that the vets have for impregnating the pandas – the vets being rather keener than the pandas for this to happen!
Here are a few of my favourite pictures:
The first panda we saw, eating his breakfast
A red panda (much smaller, and seemingly more active and better at climbing trees)
Pandas inside to escape the midday heat…and eat some more food
Us with some sleeping pandas
3 week old panda in incubator
A slightly older baby panda, closer to 4.5 weeks
Aren’t they adorable?
Around the World in 80 Elephants 