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Playful panda at the Panda Research Centre in Cheng-du. This one decided to wander up a tree to the 'flower' top. The tree buckled and snapped under the weight of the panda. However, it managed to reach the very top, albeit whilst sitting down. In the foreground one can see a faint butterfly resting on the grass. Somehow I thought it strange that the two roles were reversed.

There are very few pandas left in the wild. This research centre is perhaps the only humane place for housing of captive pandas, Chinese zoos are abominable. This place has approximately 240 hectares of land of which approximately 120 hectares are devoted to the housing and keeping of pandas. Aside from comfortable runs, there are concrete structures that serve as night quarters, feeding and ablution blocks. About 12 pandas are housed at the centre. In 2003 the centre boasts a new arrival, a baby panda. Pandas are fed in the mornings and appear to engage in play in early afternoons.

The shot is not sharp; I think it is time for eye glasses... It was taken with the maximum zoom. This is a repost of the image. The cropping has been less severe with just a little of the top, bottom and right hand cropped. The image was re-scanned on a HP scanner with a resolution of 600. In photoshop we resized the image, used bicubic and used autolevels. The whole image brightness was increased then midtones were adjusted a little to darken and saturation level was increased by 10 points. It does appear to be sharper and more like the natural image.