Photos: Giant Panda People — Scientists Don Costumes For Good Cause

Weird Science: Giant Panda Conservation <br />Researchers dress in panda costumes at China's Wolong National Nature Reserve to help re-introduce the pandas to the wild and eliminate human influence from their environment
ChinaFotoPress / Getty Images

Into the Wild
A cub is released into the reserve's semi-natural environment in Feburary, 2011. Not all re-introductions go smoothly. In 2007, a five-year-old male named Xiang Xiang was let into the wild after three years of training, but was was later found dead in a remote part of the reserve. Currently it is estimated that about 2,000 to 3,000 giant pandas live in the wild worldwide, and about 239 in captivity.

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