Staff at the Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan province in south-west China have doned panda costumes in an attempt to keep the animals alive.
The zoo is preparing to release their two-year-old male Taotao into the wild and needed to get the cub into his travel cage without alarming his protective mother.
The staff told Reuters the costumes were worn as a way of weaning the pandas off human contact before they enter the wild.
Taotao will be released into a nearby forest where other pandas are known to live.
The costumes were smeared with urine and faeces before the staff entered the enclosure to remove any trace of human smells and make the pandas feel comfortable.
The staff then used bambo to lure the cub's mother Caocao away, but despite the incentives the whole process still to workers several hours to complete.
The panda is a national treasure in China with only 1,600 living in the country, mostly in the Sichuan province.
There are about 300 pandas living in captivity around the world.
