Panda stories: Cub in hand
Bifengxia Panda Base
10 August 2008
It is one of the highlights of a visit to Bifengxia Panda Base (and Wolong Panda Centre, before the 2008 earthquake) – to have your picture taken with a one-year-old giant panda cub. There is a fee for this rare experience, but it’s money well-spent, not just to get up close and personal with one of these cuties, but to contribute to the research work done here (for that is where the money goes).
Once the photographs are taken, most visitors eagerly turn to their digital cameras, to go through the shots that were taken just minutes before, to remember the experience afresh and to see if any shots are good enough to be enlarged for display back home.
I must admit I did something similar when I had my photo op with a cubby on 9 March 2008. The next day, I offered to take pictures for a couple of friends during their black and white photo op (they agreed, even tho’ they had their own cameras but, hey, the more cameras the better). After the session was over, and while they were going through their pictures, I followed the keepers down the path back to the one-year-old cubs’ enclosure, and ended up taking what I believe is a rare picture of a giant panda cub safe in the arms of her keeper.
