They left their hometown and wandered all the way north for at least 43 days.
I have eaten grains in the crops, walked on the highway, once became "drunk" from eating lees, and once kicked the roller shutter door of a human shop into a recess.
They walked all the way and were watched all the way.
People watched it curiously, while monitoring and preventing it from time to time.
These are 17 Asian elephants that originally lived in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. They migrated from Mojiang County, Pu'er City to Yuanjiang County, Yuxi City on April 16.
This is the first time that my country's Asian wild elephants have entered regions other than Xishuangbanna, Lincang and Pu'er.
Two of them returned to Mojiang on April 24, and the other 15 continued their northward journey.
They entered Baoxiu Town, Shiping County, Honghe Prefecture in the early morning of May 16, and continued to advance. The large group arrived at Eshan County, Yuxi City on the 24th.
After wandering around the county seat of Eshan County, the elephant group walked into the mountain.
At 1 am on the 28th, the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade detected by infrared light that they were on Mount Efeng in Eshan County, and they might be resting.
In just more than 40 days, elephants caused 412 incidents in Yuanjiang County and Shiping County, directly destroying 842 acres of crops, and initially estimated direct economic losses of nearly 6.8 million yuan.
According to local media reports in Yunnan, experts from the Yunnan Forestry and Grassland Bureau analyzed that the elephant group has a tendency to continue to migrate north from the location of the elephant group and the characteristics of its recent activities.
The elephant goes all the way north
"The elephant is here, the elephant is here!"
On May 26, Mr. Jin from Eshan County heard someone shouting in the street.
He stepped onto the electric car and ran to the small streets south of the county seat to watch.
This group of wild elephants has long been well-known among local households. “There are many people on the Internet taking videos to broadcast live where the elephants have gone.” Mr. Jin said.
This is the first time Mr. Jin has seen a wild elephant. The cordon has already been pulled up a thousand meters away from the elephant herd. He and many onlookers can only take a look at it from a distance.
Mr. Jin saw that three or four baby elephants and a dozen elephants came to the cornfield, "They ate all the way and walked all the way, ruining a lot of crops."
Before being watched by Mr. Jin, the elephant group had been wandering in Daweidu Village on Xiaojie Street for a period of time.
According to the official account of "Yunnan Political Law", 15 Asian elephants entered the vicinity of Daweidu Xiaozhai Group, Xiaojie Street, Eshan County, Yuxi City at about 20 o'clock on the 24th through Shiping County, Honghe Prefecture.
The elephants began to forage after entering the village that day and left in the early morning of the 25th.
The police and auxiliary police squatted at the place where the wild elephants might pass. At 11 o'clock on the 25th, elephants were found near the Laoxiongqing Reservoir. One of the young elephants foraged about 200 kilograms of drunk lees that day and "drunk" in Dawei. The Duxiaozhai group broke away from the elephant group due to oversleeping.
After waking up, the elephant started a "free walk" near the Dawei Duxiaozhai Formation, sometimes walking along the ridge, sometimes taking a bath in the pond, sometimes playing in the ground, and wandering for a long time.
In the evening of May 25, the "drunk" baby elephant finally returned to the herd.
Where the elephants pass by, the loss is also visible to the naked eye.
The trampled farmland near Yangjinfang Village, Shelang Community, Eshan County, was about 50 to 60 square meters. Many crops fell on the ground, and there was a clear depression in the center of the corn field.
You can still see many mud pits that elephants have stepped on in the cornfield, and there are still a few elephant dung in the mud pits.
A villager told a reporter from the Beijing News that the elephants stayed in his farm for more than an hour. “It is estimated that they ate a ton of crops and did not care about them. They would naturally leave when they were full. It can be replanted, and the crops will grow back in about four months."
According to the villagers’ description, before the elephants arrived in Yangjinfang Village, the local authorities informed the villagers to hide on the roof about an hour in advance. There should be no lights or dogs barking, so as not to disturb the passing elephants.
The door of a villager's home was knocked open by an elephant with his butt. "It did not use its head, but its buttocks. After eating his corn in the villager's house, he left without hurting anyone."
Elephant herd enters the city
At noon on May 27th, at the invitation of Yuxi City Forestry and Grass Bureau, the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade brought life testers, infrared observation glasses, binoculars, etc. to Yuxi City to monitor the elephant herd.
The elephants went all the way, and the four drones of the Forest Fire Fighting Corps chased them all the way.
At 4 pm on the 27th, unmanned aerial vehicles detected elephants foraging near Dafen Mountain in Eshan County. The joint command post tried to guide the wild elephants by feeding and used large vehicles to block the outer roads.
An hour later, the elephant group entered the west side of Eshan County No. 1 Middle School, less than 400 meters away from the school.
Then the elephant group moved to the northwest from the vicinity of Dafenshan.
At 8:30 in the evening, the elephants passed through Sang'e Road in Eshan County and came to Sang'e Road and Kunmo High-speed residential houses to wander around.
The crowds in the streets of Eshan County have been evacuated. The Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade continued to use drones to conduct surveys and follow-up of the target group, promptly report the latest clues to the elephant group's activities to the joint index, and notify the people along the way to prepare for evacuation as soon as possible.
Mr. Wang, the owner of a pharmacy on Sang'e Street in Eshan County, told the Beijing News that the police had been evacuating the crowd yesterday and maintaining order at the scene, preventing residents from approaching.
He also saw fire trucks parked on the street, blocking the way for elephants to enter densely populated areas.
Mr. Jin, who also works in Sang'e Street, also saw the elephant group.
Mr. Jin climbed onto the roof of a nearby bungalow and witnessed the entire process of the wild elephant entering the city.
It was around 8 o'clock in the evening, and it was getting dark, and the elephant herd was turning around in the alley, even around the door of their own house.
"Wild elephants are too destructive. An elephant kicked the rolling door, and the door was sunken." There was also a medium-sized wild elephant that touched the glass door of the store with its nose, leaving it on the glass. There was a mark the size of the mouth of a bowl.
Ms. Zhou told the Beijing News reporter that she saw the elephant on the nearby expressway at 10pm on the 27th and kept walking on the expressway.
"The residents around me have not been in close contact with the wild elephants, and their lives and property have not been harmed."
These 15 wild elephants wandered on the streets and alleys for more than 4 hours.
It wasn't until 11 o'clock at night that they gradually left and walked into the forest.
At 1 am on the 28th, the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade detected the elephants on Mount Efeng in Eshan County through infrared rays, and speculated that they might be resting.
According to the “Yunnan Release” news, in just over 40 days, elephant groups “caused” 412 incidents in Yuanjiang County and Shiping County, directly destroying 842 acres of crops, and initially estimated direct economic losses of nearly 6.8 million yuan.
Wild elephants are migrating or looking for new habitats, humans should try to avoid contact with them
Ran Jingcheng, a researcher at the Guizhou Provincial Wildlife and Forest Plant Management Station, said that the migration of elephant herds is a normal phenomenon. When they find that their living conditions have changed, they will seek more suitable habitats through migration. "Generally this kind of migration expands. A few tens of kilometers is within the normal range, but it is rare to travel northward for nearly a hundred kilometers for a long distance." Zhang Li, professor of ecology at Beijing Normal University, pointed out that this is the first time that wild elephants have migrated so long in China.
Both Ran Jingcheng and Zhang Li believe that wild elephants are migrating in search of new habitats.
Investigating the reasons, Zhang Li believes that first, the number of Asian elephants is increasing at a rate of 3% to 5% per year, and under the pressure of population expansion, it is necessary to find new habitats.
In addition, it is also possible that human interference has destroyed the original habitat of wild elephants.
"Human activities, such as the destruction of virgin forests, have caused elephant herds to face problems such as habitat compression and food shortages." Ran Jingcheng said.
Chen Mingyong, a professor at the School of Ecology and Environment of Yunnan University, said in an interview with the media that another reason for wild elephants to go north is that “the leader of the elephant herd is inexperienced and has lost his way.” He pointed out that this season is when Asian elephant food is not available. The less food there is in the forests of the north mountains, "The elephants are in a state of disorderly wandering, and they are walking northward. This behavior is incredible."
An article by Chen Fei, director of the Asian Elephant Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, pointed out that the distribution of food sources in natural areas is more scattered than in human production areas, and crops are rich in nutrients and easy to digest, which makes wild elephants choose to eat crops.
According to Ran Jingcheng, wild elephants frequently enter residential areas in Xishuangbanna.
According to statistics, since 2010, there have been 6,674 incidents of wild Asian elephants in Xishuangbanna. The area of crop damage has reached 22,000 mu, and casualties have also occurred from time to time.
The entry of wild elephants into human activity areas is a test for both humans and elephants.
On May 27, the People's Government of Eshan County issued the "Announcement on Doing a Good Job in the Prevention and Emergency Response of Asian Elephants."
The announcement pointed out, "Do not dry corn in the yard, store salt and other crops and food that Asian elephants like." "It is forbidden to watch, tease, or tease Asian elephants. It is forbidden to use firecrackers, firecrackers, etc. to maliciously drive and injure Asian elephants." "A measure of'fixed-point feeding' is adopted for Asian elephants to guide Asian elephants away from the village and prevent human-elephant conflicts."
Ran Jingcheng believes that the local regulations "Don't dry corn or store salt in the yard" are practical and effective. "If you don't fight or eat, it's best for wild animals to keep them wild."
Zhang Li reminded that Asian elephants can run at a speed of up to 50 kilometers per hour and their strength is extremely amazing, so humans should try to avoid contact with them.
If you see Asian elephants performing warning behaviors such as raising their nose or raising their ears, they should stay away as soon as possible.
At the same time, he suggested that if Asian elephants continue to migrate to densely populated areas in the future, relevant departments can take corresponding engineering measures to guide them.
It is also necessary to maintain the monitoring of wild elephant herds, issue early warning information in time, and reduce the contact between humans and elephant herds.
Beijing News reporter Bo Qiyu, Jia Jieqing, trainee reporter Guo Yimeng, trainee Huang Qifeng, Lan Han, and Wang Yuan