After an epic 17-month journey that made international headlines, China’s famous herd of 14 wandering Asian elephants finally began heading home in August 2021. They had left their natural reserve in Pu’er city in Yunnan province, and the return covered a more-than-500-km trek. The highlights of their trip included the birth of a calf and visuals of their nap going viral. As adorable as it sounds, the stark reality is that “large-scale human engineering developments have exacerbated the ‘islanding’ of elephant habitats”.
The elephants were also monitored and kept away from residential areas by a team of eight people, who tracked them on the ground and by drone for 24 hours a day.
Local wildlife experts have been unable to pinpoint the reason the herd decided to move. But Zhang Li, a professor on mammal conservation at Beijing Normal University, told the state-run Global Times in June that “Large-scale human engineering developments have exacerbated the ‘islanding’ of elephant habitats.”
This meant “the traditional buffer zones between humans and elephants are gradually disappearing, and the chances of elephants’ encountering humans naturally increase greatly,” he said.
The tourists’ behaviour wasn’t welcomed by all, with some locals complaining that the elephants had eaten entire fields of corn and truckloads of pineapples. A car dealer in Eshan county reported in June that six visiting elephants had drunk two tonnes of water in his shop.
Others monitored the news for incidents that might pose a threat to the animals. In July, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Yunnan authorities had warned locals to avoid poisonous mushrooms growing during the wet season. Soon, the topic “Will elephants eat the poisonous mushrooms” began trending on Weibo, eventually being viewed more than 120m times.
The elephants were also used as state propaganda, starring in an editorial published by the Global Times titled, “China’s care for wandering elephants mirrors adorable national image the West can’t distort.”
Credit : The Guardian
Picture Credit : Google
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