8 drones, 115 large vehicles and hundreds of staff followed the northward elephant herd to track "where are the elephants going" and provide a reference for alleviating the "human-beast conflict"
110 days to track Asian elephants
Reading tips
Since the Yunnan Asian elephant herd gradually entered the public eye in May this year, "Where are the elephants" has become the focus of attention of many people.
Tracking the footprints of elephants has become a daily habit of many wildlife experts and animal lovers. Workers’ Daily reporters have also climbed mountains and walked through dense forests, reaching the front line of “chasing elephants”.
On August 12th, on the night of the 10th "World Elephant Day", the Asian elephant herd moved north from Yunnan from Manlai Town, Yuanjiang County, Yuxi City into Mojiang County, Pu'er City, returning to its traditional habitat.
Nine working groups are in place: "Where are you moving?"
"In order to prevent any human-elephant conflicts, Yunnan has established a provincial headquarters for the safety and precaution of Asian elephants moving north. This is an'unprecedented' organization whose goal is human elephant safety." Yang Yingyong said.
"In the process of following the elephants, we had a thrilling moment, but also the object group, especially the little elephants in the group, worried about it."
"Where? Did you move?" Everyone who entered the command center, the first action was to look up at the big screen, knowing that the elephant was sleeping peacefully in place would feel relieved.
For the past two months, the provincial headquarters organized on-site inspections every day, studied and judged the migration routes of elephant groups, guided the deployment and control; coordinated the provincial forest fire brigade, expanded the monitoring scope, and ensured that there were no dead ends in the monitoring and no loopholes in the deployment.
At 9 o'clock in the morning every day, the on-site headquarters will hold a dispatch meeting on time, including the comprehensive coordination group, monitoring and early warning group, feeding guidance group, safety precaution group, removal assistance working group, on-site management and control group, propaganda working group, loss compensation group, and comprehensive security group After the 9 working groups were in place, the provincial and local forestry, emergency, public security, forest fire protection, power, transportation, and city, county, and township departments gathered together, and everyone stared at the command screen. According to Mountain topography, forests, rivers, passages, ground crops, combined with the daily habits of the elephant group, make a judgment on the next move direction of the elephant group.
But "research and judgment" is not an easy task.
The weather, the terrain, the elephant disappeared while walking, the drone was out of control range, and the elephant group "disappeared" on the monitor's infrared night vision monitor screen.
The on-site command center immediately operated urgently, requiring the on-site command center to look for elephant trails while ensuring safety.
The air and ground monitoring and early warning personnel made emergency transitions, and the staff at each monitoring point and stuck point began to take action.
Field surveys, terrain inspections, feeding of food, attention to the health of the elephant herd, avoiding the elephant herd from entering the village, crisis management, and more accurate judgment of the elephant’s next direction...
Drones follow "go and stop"
Every day, 8 drones, 115 large vehicles and hundreds of staff "walk" with the elephants. The activity of the elephant herd is "stop and go".
On July 11, the "Workers Daily" reporter came to Shiping County and followed the wild Asian elephant search and monitoring task force of the Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade to the front-line headquarters of "Chasing Elephants". The monitoring team sent back the pictures in real time to judge the dynamics for the rear , Provide basis for advance deployment.
At the monitoring point, the reporter saw various types of drones lined up one by one, the largest being more than 1 meter in length, and the smallest being only more than 30 centimeters.
The unmanned aerial vehicle reconnaissance team of the Yunnan Forest Fire Fighting Corps is one of the three “air forces” in the “chasing the elephant”. It has followed all the way from May 27. There are 12 drone pilots in the team. The height of the aerial photography is about 300 meters. Try not to disturb the migration of the elephants and monitor it 24 hours a day.
Zhang Xiong is the main pilot of the UAV search and monitoring unit, and he fought with 20 other commanders and fighters.
"It used to take 45 minutes to lock the elephant, but now it takes 20 minutes." He said, "The drone that takes off at night is equipped with an infrared thermal imager. A string of'red dots' on the screen is the location of the elephant group. The "red dots" gathered together and moved slowly. This is the elephant group resting. The "red dots" are moving in a long line to hurry, and the drone has to quickly follow up.
The pilots adjusted the shooting focus from time to time to check the movements of each elephant.
Every 20 minutes, the drone has to replace the battery and then take off again.
It is difficult to grasp the law of elephant herd movement, which brings difficulty to monitoring.
When the elephants are most active, the elephants can walk seven or eight kilometers of mountain roads in one night, and the monitoring personnel have to move around 4 points. If they don't pay attention, the head and tail elephants may run far away.
"'Eating' is the elephant's most important demand, and it is also the basis for judging the route of travel." Liu Shaohong, deputy commander of the front-line headquarters, said: "The elephant spends half of his time eating every day."
On July 6, the elephant herd arrived at the woodland in Xinping County. The local thunderstorm weather continued and monitoring was forced to stop.
"Early the next morning, the drone flew for 5 hours and used 7 batteries to find the elephant herd." said Chen Shengyao, a staff member of the Provincial Forest Fire Brigade.
"When it rains, the drone can't work. My colleagues and I walked to look for footprints, feces, gnawed things, and searched for traces, facing the risk of close contact with humans and elephants."
Provide reference for alleviating the "human-beast conflict"
The purpose of this trip was to collect elephant dung by Shen Qingzhong, a senior engineer from the Management and Protection Bureau of Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve.
"The feces can be used to judge the health status, check the food composition, and also help judge the genetic relationship. This is the first time we have comprehensively observed the migration of elephants and provided data support for the protection of wild elephants." Shen Qingzhong said.
Shen Qingzhong said that elephants "travel" across different climatic and ecological environments, and their adaptability provides a new reference for Asian elephant research.
The migration and proliferation of Asian elephants is inevitable. The National Forestry and Grass Administration and Yunnan Province have begun to promote the construction of national parks, and carry out predictive and long-term overall layout and planning from the perspective of protection and balance.
At this stage, it is important to quickly build a complete monitoring and prevention system, use appropriate technical means to effectively control the activities of the objects, and avoid the large-scale migration and spread of elephant groups as much as possible.
"The northern elephant herd provides experimental opportunities for exploring animal population management and control programs." said Chen Fei, director of the Asian Elephant Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. It also innovatively used flexible intervention techniques that combine migration route prediction, deployment control, and feeding to provide a reference sample for alleviating the'human-elephant conflict' and even the'human-beast conflict' in the future."
Reporter: Huang Yu