This is the moment two workers encounter a giant panda as it walks on a bridge looking for a mate.

The two electricians, named Yong Guofeng and Wang Huaping, had been sent to work on a power cable when they came across the wild panda in Pingwu County, in the Chinese province of Sichuan, on 2nd April.

In the video, the giant panda can be seen from a distance walking slowly on the bridge.

As one of the workers shouts “there’s a panda on the bridge”, it turns around, trots back towards the road, and disappears into an area of woodland.

A Pingwu County official said that when mating season for wild pandas starts, the giant pandas, which are usually solitary, are active in seeking out mates.

Feng Jie, a spokesperson from Shan Shui Conservation Centre, told local media: “It is now the mating season for giant pandas.

“Giant pandas are relatively bold and their territorial awareness is not so strong, so they can appear in other places too.”

According to Pingwu County officials, the wild pandas are not dangerous to people, as they avoid humans, even when looking for a partner, and do not tend to attack.

According to China’s Fourth National Giant Panda Survey, there has been a 16.8 per cent rise in wild panda numbers in the last ten years, with an estimated minimum population of 1,864 wild pandas.

Pingwu County has 335 giant pandas, which is 18 per cent of the total number of giant pandas in the country.