Keepers wearing slightly unrealistic panda bear outfits were enough to fool the baby panda into thinking he was among friends… and ready to start a new life. Tao Tao, the first captive panda born in a semi-wild reserve in China, has never seen a human face so conservationists wore panda suits to release him and mother Cao Cao into the wild. The keepers approached the two-year-old carefully and placed him in a wooden box at the panda wild training base. On release, Tao Tao seemed unafraid of the strange figures who walked behind as he took his first steps through his new home in dense bamboo undergrowth high in the mountains in Wolong, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.Keepers have always dressed in panda suits while around him in the hope that he would adapt to the wild. When he was six months old he and his mother Cao Cao were moved into a large mountainous area for intensive wild habitat training. This proved a success and the pair were moved to an even wilder area where they had more freedom. Over the last few years Tao Tao has been learning all the behaviours andas need in the wild, such as walking, climbing trees and looking for food. To keep track of him in the wild, and see how well he is adapting, Tao Tao has been fitted with a traceable ID chip and a GPS collar. Following the success of the programme there are now plans to release six more pregnant female pandas into semi wild enclosures.
Panda cub fooled by zoo workers wearing dodgy panda bear outfits
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