Are the hiking elephants okay
——An investigation on the protection status of wild Asian elephants in Yunnan Cao Song
In 2021, the elephant "fires".
A group of wild Asian elephants known as the "broken nose family" are on a long-distance "travel" of hundreds of kilometers in Yunnan, China.
Under the protection of the local government and the people, this herd of elephants went smoothly all the way, and the related phenomenon caused widespread concern from domestic and foreign netizens-while chasing the elephant, it also allowed everyone to focus on the topic of domestic wild elephant protection.
There are currently about 300 wild Asian elephants in China, mainly living in Yunnan. Are their habitats okay?
How to better protect Asian elephants?
How do people and elephants live together in harmony?
Since April this year, a group of wild Asian elephants migrating in Yunnan has attracted public attention.
They traveled north from their habitat, Xishuangbanna, and once reached Kunming.
Under the protection of the local government and the people, this group of elephants had a "happy" journey. After their photos and videos of wandering around, eating, and sleeping were spread and shared on the Internet, they not only aroused the public view in China, but also attracted overseas netizens. extensive attention.
Behind the Mengzhao and the flow, the discussion outside of this group of traveling elephants is also enthusiastic.
There are about 300 wild Asian elephants in China, mainly living in the Xishuangbanna, Pu'er and Lincang regions of Yunnan.
Is the habitat in which they live okay?
Why "run away from home"?
How to better protect Asian elephants... A reporter from the Economic Daily conducted an in-depth interview on this.
This time the migration distance is farther
According to the monitoring of the Yunnan Provincial Headquarters for Asian Elephant Safety Precautions (the "Headquarters"), as of 17:00 on July 6, the elephant group was active in the woodland near Guishan Street, Xinping County, Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, and generally moved to the southeast.
The reporter combed and found that this elephant herd originally lived in the Mengyangzi Reserve of Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, Yunnan, but actually moved outward as early as March last year.
They first arrived in Pu'er City until they left Pu'er and entered Yuanjiang County, Yuxi City for food on April 16 this year, and then moved all the way to the north, attracting widespread media attention.
Why did this group of Asian elephants go north?
Everyone gave many speculations such as "lost theory", "geomagnetic storm theory", "instinctive migration theory", "search for habitat" and so on.
"Either Asian elephants or African elephants have the characteristics of long-distance migration, which helps to find new feeding places and river habitats, and also helps gene flow between populations and maintain survival in the ever-changing environment. According to Chen Fei, director of the Asian Elephant Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, “the movement of wild elephants is actually not uncommon. For example, Asian elephants in India will migrate to neighboring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. There are also cross-border activities of wild Asian elephants in the three northern provinces of Laos."
Chen Fei introduced that the study found that the Asian elephant populations that moved northward this time have always had the habit of migration and diffusion. Since 1995, 5 Asian elephants have spread northward to the Simao District of Pu'er City; in 2005, there were 13 Asian elephants. It spread westward to Lancang County; since last year, an Asian elephant family has moved southward into Menglun since Mengyang, and is currently staying near the Banna Botanical Garden.
Survey data from the Yunnan Forestry and Grass Bureau show that in recent years, as the country continues to increase protection of Asian elephants and their habitats, the population of wild Asian elephants in China has developed significantly-in 30 years, the number has increased from about 150 to about 300 ; The distribution range has also expanded from 2 prefectures and 3 counties in Yunnan to 3 prefectures and 12 counties and districts.
"The scope of Asian elephants' activities continues to expand, but this time the northward migration of elephants has moved a little farther away. We should look at it more rationally in light of the species itself." Chen Fei told reporters.
It is worth mentioning that this time the 15 Asian elephants were able to explore new habitats unimpededly, which is inseparable from the local government's "escort" for residents and Asian elephants along the way.
This action provided a guarantee for reducing human-elephant conflicts and was widely praised by the international community.
"We use a combination of ground personnel and drone tracking to analyze the trajectory of the elephant herd, study the movement of the elephant in advance, and advance traffic control in the areas where the Asian elephant may pass, effectively avoiding human-elephant conflict." Forestry and Grassland in Yunnan Province Director Xiang Ruwu of the Bureau of Animals and Plants told reporters.
Since June, Yunnan has entered the rainy season. The staff have also tried to take advantage of the favorable conditions of rainfall to cool down, and help migrating Asian elephants to return to Xishuangbanna through a combination of scientific and appropriate feeding lures and deblocking methods.
"This is the best situation in the preset." Shen Qingzhong, a senior engineer of the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Management and Protection Bureau, said, "The command will follow all the way to provide technical support and safety propaganda. But in the end, it depends on them. s Choice."
How to identify the habitat
When 15 Asian elephants migrated to northern Yunnan, many people blamed the destruction of the elephant habitat in the south.
In this regard, Guo Xianming, a senior engineer at the Institute of Science in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, said that it is obviously not rigorous to summarize the reasons simply based on the northward migration of this herd of elephants.
"The first thing that needs to be understood is the relationship between the reserve and the elephant." Guo Xianming said.
The Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Yunnan was built in 1958. It was re-adjusted and expanded in 1980. It is composed of 5 sub-protected areas that are not connected to each other. The total area is 242,500 hectares. It is the region with the largest number of Asian elephant populations in China .
In recent years, the local management department has strictly followed the regulations of the reserve. The reserve is rich in forest resources, and the forest coverage rate has reached 97.02%.
"The definition of a protected area is to protect the tropical forest ecosystem and the rare wild animals and plants in the system. The Asian elephant is just one of them, not exclusive." Guo Xianming said.
According to Shen Qingzhong, according to many years of research and observation, Asian elephants like to eat low shrubs and herbaceous plants. They need water sources and sheltered forests to rest. At the same time, there must be natural "nitrate ponds" to supplement salt.
However, “the forest in the reserve is very well protected, but the trees are tall and dense, and the high forest canopy density will result in too few shrubs and herbs under the forest. When the elephant’s food is reduced, it will go out of the forest and go to the outside of the reserve. The land inhabits for food." Guo Xianming said.
Villagers living near the reserve have a deep understanding of this.
Cigarette Qing Village, Dadugang Township, Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, is less than 5 km from the famous Wild Elephant Valley Scenic Spot.
Feng Guanglin, party branch secretary of Cigarette Ching Village, told reporters, “Elephants often haunt the villages and eat corn and other crops we grow”.
In recent years, with the gradual improvement of the legal system and the increasing awareness of people’s protection, Asian elephants have begun to reduce their fear of people, and more frequently go out of protected areas and enter farmland to eat crops. Together with the increase in the number of Asian elephants, this contradiction has become more prominent. .
Obviously, elephant habitat is a broader concept than a restricted reserve.
"A protected area is only a subjectively delineated range by humans. For Asian elephants, where there is food suitable for survival, it will treat it as a habitat." Chen Fei said.
In addition, Guo Xianming said that the people outside the protected area planted rubber and tea economic forest damaged the quality of elephant habitat, Guo Xianming said that it needs to be treated dialectically.
"From a national level, the protected area is a wildlife sanctuary within our legal limits. However, outside the protected area, the production and planting of cash crops on their own contracted land is considered to be destroying the habitat of the Asian elephant. I think this The point of view is extreme. The entire Xishuangbanna prefecture cannot be regarded as a habitat, which is unscientific."
"Touch the stones" to build a harmonious pattern
Asian elephants, with their honest appearance, are actually very aggressive and run very fast.
In the past 30 years, the population of wild Asian elephants in China has continued to grow.
When these behemoths frequently walk out of the forest to visit villages and farmland, how should people live in harmony with them?
Many places in Yunnan are constantly exploring by "feeling the stones".
Naji Village, Yixiang Town, Simao District, Pu'er City is surrounded by mountains, green trees, and elephant herds for a long time.
"Developing early warning and monitoring of Asian elephants is the top priority." Tang Ying, deputy director of the Forestry and Grass Bureau of Simao District, told reporters that in order to observe Asian elephant activities in a timely manner, Naji Village deployed 6 villagers familiar with the local environment as Asian elephant early warning monitors. Responsible for the tracking and monitoring of Asian elephants, "Early every morning, before farming and outdoor work, the monitors will issue early warning information through mobile phone text messages or WeChat platform, so that the masses can accurately grasp the elephant's activity trajectory and avoid them in time."
The reporter learned that through years of exploration, Xishuangbanna Prefecture has established a diversified monitoring and early warning system such as early warning monitors and drone tracking.
Tan Xuji, an engineer at the Scientific Research Institute of the Reserve, told reporters that after years of tracking and monitoring, they have basically mastered the distribution of wild Asian elephants.
In November 2019, through cooperation with a third-party company, the reserve deployed 605 infrared cameras and 21 cameras in the reserve, integrating artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things and other technologies to build an Asian elephant monitoring and early warning protection system.
"Once the Asian elephant is identified, the early warning system will send an alarm to the villagers in the area and the estimated route through the mobile phone APP and smart speaker." Tan Xuji said.
For human-intensive areas where elephants often visit, the local area also uses physical isolation to isolate humans and elephants from activities to avoid frontal conflict.
Yanyanqing Village is located in a nature reserve, and wild elephants once frequently broke into the village for food.
In 2017, the reserve carried out the construction of a pilot project of Asian elephant fence in the village.
The reporter saw that a 2.2-meter-high steel pipe fence with a total length of more than 800 meters was built around the village. The only way to enter the village was a bridge and a special elephant-proof gate.
"The protective fence prevents wild elephant activities and villagers from disturbing each other and effectively protects everyone's safety." Feng Guanglin, party branch secretary of Yanqiqing Village, told reporters.
In 2017 and 2019, Ye Xiang broke into Naji Primary School in Yixiang Town, Simao District, Pu'er City twice.
"It was summer vacation, and the elephant came and ate the palm trees." The principal Zhu Chao recalled.
In order to protect the safety of the campus, in 2019, the local government built a 15-ton elephant fence at the entrance of Najib Primary School, which can keep elephants out of the door.
In recent years, with the continuous popularization of environmental protection education, the people living around elephant habitats have gradually deepened their concepts of preventing and avoiding elephants, and loving and protecting them.
In order to reduce the frequency of elephants entering the village, Yunnan has also tried to build elephant "canteens" to meet the elephant's foraging needs to a certain extent.
In Mengzhu Village, Liushun Town, Simao District, Pu'er City, where wild elephant activities are frequent, banana trees grow on a hillside.
Luo Xinrong, an employee at the Elephant Food Source of Sanmu Wood Co., Ltd., pointed his finger far away, saying, "These are foods specially grown for elephants, with 1,600 acres."
Due to frequent infestation by elephants, this land has been abandoned. Pu'er City has adopted a subsidy of 200 yuan per mu to encourage farmers to plant plantains, corn, palm leaf reeds and other plants that Asian elephants like to eat in different periods and seasons to make up for the cause. The economic loss caused by the Asian elephant accident to the farmers.
This method has been promoted in many places in wild elephant activities.
Yang Zhongping, a monitor in Liushun Township, Simao District, has worked in the local area for many years. He told reporters, “With enough food, the number of wild elephants entering the village has been significantly reduced.”
The reporter learned that in order to effectively solve the problems of personal injury and property damage caused by wildlife accidents, Yunnan took the lead in establishing a compensation system for wildlife accidents in the country in 1993; in 2010, it took the lead in launching a trial of public liability insurance for wild animals and introducing commercial insurance. Model, improve the compensation mechanism, and achieve full provincial coverage in 2014.
Data shows that from 2014 to 2020, Yunnan has paid a total of 173 million yuan in compensation for losses caused by Asian elephants, which has made up for the losses of the masses to a certain extent.
"To alleviate conflicts, my country has tried various measures in the past 30 years." Shen Qingzhong said, "Human-elephant conflicts not only exist in China, but also exist in the world, and conflicts will not disappear in the future."
Survival space overlapping problem to be solved
The work of exploring active prevention of Asian elephants has not stopped.
Since the 1990s, while strictly protecting Asian elephants, Yunnan has also been constantly facing the situation of Asian elephants breaking through protected areas and entering human activity areas.
According to Chen Fei, researchers once invented an elephant-proof grid. This device does not cause harm to elephants, but prevents elephants from entering densely populated villages.
"However, the elephants knocked down the power grid with a trunk, and they quickly found a way to crack it."
It was also suggested that the protected area is not entirely suitable for elephants as a habitat, can it be artificially modified?
In this regard, Guo Xianming said, “We will consider artificially transforming some areas where Asian elephants are concentrated into more suitable places for Asian elephants, but not the entire protected area. The protected area mainly protects tropical forest ecosystems and rare wild animals and plants. For the Lord, the elephant is not the only one."
In Xishuangbanna, elephants can move freely inside and outside the protected area. Especially in recent decades, they have been accustomed to eating crops in villages and farmlands. The overlapping of living spaces between humans and elephants is inevitable.
Wang Yinghua, a villager in Nanling Village, Jingne Township, Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, who lives on the edge of the reserve, discovered that elephants are used to sleeping in the forest during the day and coming out for food in the evening, taking the opposite schedule to the villagers.
To reduce losses, Wang Yinghua had to change the planting structure.
"I used to plant more corn and elephants like to eat. Now I have changed to plant toon, pumpkins, and fruits, and elephants have come relatively less."
Ma Mingliang, a villager in Cigarette Qing Village, simply stopped farming and went to work nearby.
"There is no harvest for the crops, so it is better to go out to work. The land has been barren for 10 years."
Guo Xianming told reporters that taking into account the interests of the people, the insurance compensation purchased by the government has been increased since 2020, but he still issued an appeal: “Insurance will only cover direct losses, but the indirect economic losses caused by elephant accidents to the masses’ production will be reduced. It’s hard to estimate. For example, if the elephants have been here for a month, the masses cannot go to the woods to tap rubber, and may not have any income."
The number of Asian elephants is increasing, the scope of their activities is getting bigger and bigger, going out of the protected areas to find food and habitats are constantly overlapping with human activities... The emergence of these new problems and contradictions, it is urgent for scientists to explore and find solutions in a deeper level.
Dao Jianhong, deputy director of the Forestry and Grass Bureau of Xishuangbanna Prefecture, said, “First, increase scientific research and promote the construction of national parks dominated by Asian elephants. The scope and area of the delineation require a top-level design. Second, for Asia To carry out scientific research on the habits and biological characteristics of elephants, and to conduct scientific management of Asian elephants. Third, increase the intensity of ecological transfer payments to Xishuangbanna Prefecture and increase the amount of public liability insurance claims for wildlife accidents. These all require investment."
The big discussion triggered by a group of wild elephants has allowed the world to see China's efforts and commitments in protecting wild animals.
To be sure, it is a safe choice for elephants in China.
——Investigation on the protection status of wild Asian elephants in Yunnan
——Investigation on the protection status of wild Asian elephants in Yunnan