China News Service, Yuxi, June 14th, title: China's key words for Asian elephants moving northward: Elephants are safe

　　Author Miao Chao

　　On the Dragon Boat Festival, good luck and good luck.

June 14 is the traditional Chinese festival of Dragon Boat Festival. On that day, the Chinese eat rice dumplings, hang moxa leaves, and row a dragon boat to convey blessings to relatives and friends.

　　In previous years, the Dragon Boat Festival, "Auspicious "xiang" Ruyi" did not appear in people's blessings.

This year, the Asian elephant herd named "broken nose family" left the Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve in Yunnan and migrated all the way to the north through Pu'er, Yuxi, Kunming and other places, causing widespread public concern.

　　Do elephants have food?

Are they tired from walking so far?

Can the baby elephant keep up with the elephant herd?

How do they "go home"?

... Recently, China's Internet has almost been "dominated" by the "broken nose family" Asian elephants.

　　During the Dragon Boat Festival, netizen Wang Min posted in the circle of friends "A good Dragon Boat Festival, good luck for the elephants, and blessings for the lovely elephants." Under the warm text, she matched a picture of "broken nose family" in the forests of Yimen County, Yuxi. In the dynamic pictures of the group lunch break, the elephants "lay flat" on the ground, fanning their ears from time to time, and they were pretty naive.

　　This picture was taken by drone by the Yunnan monitoring team tracking the "broken nose family".

Over the past month, the monitoring team has taken a large number of precious pictures and videos of elephants migrating northward looking for food in farmland, playing in the river, playing in the forest, entering the village and entering the house, and elephants helping the baby elephants to cross the water ditch.

　　Since the "broken nose family" moved north, in order to protect this group of Asian elephants, Yunnan has set up a special protection working group and professional monitoring team to remind people along the way to consciously protect Asian elephants, avoid the areas and routes of Asian elephants, and do not affect them. Their activity trajectory.

　　"This is also to ensure human safety. After all, wild Asian elephants are ferocious beasts." Monitoring team Li Peng told reporters, "As long as necessary, we will continue to monitor to ensure the safety of human elephants."

　　"The elephants are on the mountain, and the task force and monitors are stationed in the village." Li Wenlu, a villager in Nanshan Village, Yimen County, told reporters that the elephants have stayed in the forests near Nanshan Village for three days. They went to the fields to eat plantains at night. , Corn, rice and other crops, "the work team and monitors told the villagers to hide at home and not to turn on the lights at night."

　　Xiang Ruwu, director of the Wildlife Conservation Division of the Yunnan Forestry and Grassland Bureau, said that in response to the northward migration of Asian elephants, Yunnan adheres to the principle of "no harm or death of elephants", and adopts methods such as physical isolation, dynamic alarms, and food delivery. Intervened in the activities of the target group, and successfully prevented the elephant group from entering villages, towns, large cities, and densely populated areas on many occasions.

　　The reporter noticed that starting from May 30th, Yunnan will report to the media every day the news of the Asian elephants moving northward, and "human elephant safety" is the key word in the daily report.

　　On the evening of June 13, Yunnan notified that the elephant group continued to move around in a small area in Shijie Township, Yimen County, Yuxi.

The lone elephant is out of the group for 8 days. It is located in the northeast of the elephant group and continues to be active in Xiyang Township, Jinning District, Kunming, a distance of about 16 kilometers.

People are peaceful.

　　Up to now, no casualties have been caused by Asian elephants moving north.

Chen Fei, director of the Asian Elephant Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration of China, said, “We have collected the feces of the Asian elephant population that migrated north, and are doing metagenomic sequencing and microbial cultivation research. We hope that we can study the health of wild elephants through molecular methods. Provide support for the protection and management of wild elephants." (End)