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a year-old panda in a tree in China
July 19, 2016

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Although giant pandas spend most of the day eating and sleeping, they love to climb and play. Here a year-old cub explores the treetops in an enclosure at the Wolong center of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda, where captive-bred pandas are trained to live in the wild. If the animal passes tests to gauge its survival skills and instincts, it will be released into the mountains.

See more pictures from the August 2016 feature story "Pandas Get to Know Their Wild Side."

Photograph by Ami Vitale
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