Adorable Moment Researchers Struggle To Hold Fidgety Panda Cubs To Welcome Winter Olympics

This is the adorable and hilarious moment a group of researchers struggles to hold a cupboard of fidgety panda cubs to welcome the Winter Olympics.

The cute footage was filmed at the China Research & Conservation Centre for the Giant Panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve in the south-western Chinese province of Sichuan on Monday morning, 24th January.

The panda cubs were filmed as researchers tried their best to hold them still to celebrate the Lunar New Year and to welcome the Winter Olympics, which will be held in the capital Beijing from 4th to 20th February.

Twenty panda cubs made a collective appearance to celebrate the New Year and welcome the Winter Olympics at Wolong National Nature Reserve in China. (CCRCGP/AsiaWire )

Around 20 panda cubs, all aged around six months, made an appearance at the shoot.

After wishing each other a happy new year, the researchers gave the panda cubs free rein in the reserve, where they unpacked gifts and played with toys left for them.

Twenty-seven pandas were reportedly born in the reserve last year (2021), bringing the total resident panda bear population to 356, according to media outlet Baidu.

Twenty panda cubs made a collective appearance to celebrate the New Year and welcome the Winter Olympics at Wolong National Nature Reserve in China. (CCRCGP/AsiaWire )

The staff at the reserve are tasked with feeding the panda cubs milk until they reach the age of one, when they can eat bamboo on their own.

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) lives only in a few mountain ranges, mainly in Sichuan, but also in the neighbouring provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu.

It is categorised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a ‘vulnerable’ species, and it is conservation-reliant.

Twenty panda cubs made a collective appearance to celebrate the New Year and welcome the Winter Olympics at Wolong National Nature Reserve in China. (kfldxm/AsiaWire )

According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are 1,864 giant pandas left in the wild.