Nestled in the Qionglai Mountains in China’s Sichuan Province is the Wolong Nature Reserve. Here, forty giant pandas and a dedicated team of staff are playing a crucial role in increasing the country’s panda population, which currently stands at just one thousand.

As part of the Reserve’s breeding programme, a new method of raising panda cubs has been developed, called ‘swap-raising’. To increase the chances of both cubs surviving, the baby bears are swapped between their natural mother and a ‘surrogate mum’ — in this case veterinarian Wei Rongping — until they are six months old.

Panda Nursery witnesses this special partnership between Rongping and an eleven-year-old female panda called Ershihao, who, three months after being artificially inseminated, gives birth to two tiny furless cubs. The programme follows the highs and lows of the eventful first six months of the cubs’ lives and explores the challenges facing giant pandas in the wild.