Why does the elephant group "hang around" here
The "Short Nose" family of wild elephants moving northward nearly 500 kilometers from Xishuangbanna. Since entering Shijie Township, Yimen County, Yuxi City, Yunnan Province on June 8, they have been wandering in the undulating Shijie Township until the 14th. , 14 Asian elephants have stayed near Nanshan Village for 4 days.
Why are the elephants hovering here?
Do they like it here?
On June 13, the reporter went to Nanshan Village, Shijie Village Committee, Shijie Township, only 700 meters away from the elephant group, to visit the living conditions of the wild elephants on the spot.
Large elephant footprints
"Look, this is the footprints of elephants in the field, the size of a bucket!" In the fields near Nanshan Village on the hillside of Nanshan, the huge footprints of elephants are surprising.
The reporter put his feet into the elephant's footprints to compare them, like the little feet of a child in a big dustpan.
In the fields on both sides of the road into Nanshan Village, elephant footprints can be seen everywhere, and there are four or five rows of elephant footprints in densely populated fields where corn seedlings emerge.
"These crooked plantains, corn, and rice were all eaten by elephants." The monitoring team member of the Elephant Group of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Corps moved northward, pointing to the crops in the field and told reporters.
I saw plantain trees on the ridges on both sides of the road into the village with severed waists. The waist-deep corn in the cornfield was swaying from side to side. Although the footprints of the elephants in the rice fields were submerged by water, it could be seen that they were trampled One waterway.
On the road from the mountain to the village, long banana branches and leaves can be seen everywhere. This is a delicacy that people put on the elephant herd, but the elephants do not seem to appreciate it, but prefer the food crops grown in the fields.
Professor Chen Mingyong from the School of Ecology and Environment of Yunnan University led a ground tracking and monitoring team that has been guiding and monitoring the northern migration elephant group at the site headquarters.
He told reporters: "The current rainy season is approaching, and the elephants are inconvenient to move. Corn, plantains and other crops are thriving here. Elephants love to eat and will not leave here soon.
The warrior and the "eye of the sky" who accompany the elephant group
"Fourteen wild elephants are resting on the top of the mountain behind the village. They are only 700 meters away." Luo Jiaquan, deputy head of the patrol special police detachment of the Yuxi City Public Security Bureau, said as he pointed to the top of the mountain behind Nanshan Village.
Following the direction he pointed, I saw a forest on the top of the hill that was not too high, and the hillside close to the top was covered with weeds and shrubs.
Luo Jiaquan said: "The elephant group is behind the forest."
The drone monitoring point of the Yuxi police and the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade to monitor the elephant group is located on the second floor terrace of the villager Zhang Zhenlin's house in Nanshan Village.
A black drone slowly landed on the terrace. Luo Jiaquan quickly replaced the drone's battery. Under the remote control of a colleague next to him, the drone rose into the air and flew towards the mountain-top elephant group.
The drone flies at an altitude of 300 meters, at a height that will not disturb the elephants.
Immediately afterwards, the UAV of the Forest Fire Fighting Corps also took off to jointly use the UAV "Sky Eye" object group to conduct continuous monitoring for 24 hours.
The real-time image of the monitoring is presented directly on the computer screen next to the firefighter operating the drone.
Looking down from the drone's "sky eye", I saw the elephants faintly sleeping on the grass in the dense forest, and two elephants standing aside.
Du Wei, a firefighter who is operating a drone, told reporters: “The weather is hot during the day, and the elephants sleep on the mountain, and two elephants are standing guard. When the weather gets cold around 5 pm, they go down the mountain to search for food in the fields.”
Experts such as Chen Mingyong repeatedly emphasized that wild elephants are not only honest and cute, but also fierce and dangerous.
"We have encountered elephants four or five times. We just transferred to Caoba Village in Hongta District and were installing equipment to monitor the elephants. We suddenly saw the elephants swaggering by." Luo Jiaquan said.
The danger faced by the monitoring team is not only the sudden encounter with the elephant herd, but also the monitoring personnel must approach the elephant herd for manual monitoring during heavy rain, because drones cannot be used during heavy rain.
"It rained heavily on the evening of June 11. Three members of our monitoring team wore raincoats and umbrellas and went to the fields near Nanshan Village to look for the monitoring elephants. The rain was too heavy and it was difficult to see. When the rain stopped, we found the elephants leaving us. It's only forty to fifty meters." Kunming Forest Fire Monitor Kuang Yuyu calmly recounted that night of fright.
According to Wang Jie, head of the wild Asian elephant search and monitoring unit of the Yunnan Forest Fire Department, the forest fire department has successively mobilized the elite forces of the headquarters, Kunming detachment, and Dali detachment, a total of 5 vehicles and 20 fighters, carrying drones and infrared night vision devices Wireless communication equipment and equipment, organized into 5 search and monitoring teams, fought continuously for 18 days and nights, maneuvered more than 3,800 kilometers, and carried out 24-hour non-stop search and monitoring of 15 elephants of the "short nose" family of Asian elephants, which provided precision for command and decision-making. in accordance with.
The villagers who saw wild elephants for the first time
For the rural people in Shijie Township in central Yunnan, the northern elephant group was the first wild elephant they saw, and excitement and anxiety accompanied them.
"We can all see wild elephants going down the mountain on the roof. We dare not work in the fields when the wild elephants go down the mountain. We love and fear wild elephants," said Liu Yunxing, a villager of Nanshan Village, to reporters.
Villager Zhang Zhenlin packed two boxes of rice dumplings and prepared to sell them in the market town.
He pointed to a big tree 100 meters away from the window and told reporters: "The night before yesterday, I saw wild elephants under that big tree. The government monitored the wild elephants upstairs in my house. I support it very much. I hope these wild elephants will be able to come soon. Back to Xishuangbanna."
At 5:00 pm on June 10, Li Bai, secretary of the Party branch of the Zhumujiu Village Committee of Shijie Township, received a notice that the northern elephant group will pass through the Mujiu Village.
He and the village officials immediately notified the evacuation of the people by broadcasting, so that the villagers quickly hid upstairs in their own homes, and the villagers without buildings and the elderly, weak, sick and disabled were placed in public houses in the village.
"At around 9 p.m., 14 elephants walked across the road in the middle of the village and left the village in about 5 minutes. The elephants did not find anything to eat and did not cause any damage in the village." Li Bai said.
The pressure on the villagers from the northern migration of the elephant herd is more of the crops trampled on by the elephants.
Villager Liu Yunxing said: "Yesterday my Baogu was eaten by elephants, and I may be eaten some more tonight, but I believe the government will solve it."
According to Liu Shaohong, deputy director of the Yuxi Forestry and Grassland Bureau, since the elephant group entered Yuxi on April 16, there have been no casualties due to the migration of Asian elephants, but some economic crops and equipment have been damaged.
As of June 8, the elephant group had passed through 9 towns (streets), causing property damage to more than 400 households. The estimated economic losses reported were still being counted, mainly including the loss of economic crops such as bananas, plantains, and corn. the Lord.
Xiang Ruwu, director of the Department of Animals and Plants of the Yunnan Forestry and Grassland Bureau, said that Yunnan has started the compensation work of public liability insurance for wildlife accidents to determine the damages and compensations for the damage caused by the target groups to the residents along the line. , Compensation will be made for the losses of residents along the route.
On the field road outside Nanshan Village, a villager surnamed Liu is driving a three-wheeled motorcycle to prepare to pull Basho.
He smiled and said to the reporter: "The banana trees in the field were eaten by elephants. I will cut down the leftover banana trees and drag them onto the road to feed the elephants."
(Reporter Zhang Yong Xu Tan)