Rare family photo of pandas captured on camera in China

BEIJING: In a first, a wild panda mother and her cub were photographed together by an infrared camera in northwest China's Gansu Province.

"In the photo the panda mother and the cub were looking at each other, which was very sweet," He Liwen, office director of Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve said.

More than 260 infrared cameras in the reserve have taken many photos over the past two years, but the family photo was a first, he said.


"The camera had more than 3,000 photos in its memory card. I sorted through 600 photos before I came across it. It was taken at 2 AM on October 25," he said.

The photo shows that the giant panda population is growing steadily in the reserve, said Yuan Fengxiao, head of the reserve administration, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Baishuijiang National Nature Reserve has world's largest number of wild pandas -- 110 out of 132 wild pandas in the province live within the reserve area.

"The cub was about two-months-old. We plan to install more infrared cameras in the area in hope of keeping tracks of the cub's growth in the years to come," he said.