Behind the 15 wild elephants migrating northward for eight hundred miles: The habitat has been severely reduced, how to persuade them to return?
The 15 wild elephants all the way to the north, in fact, there are already signs, but this time they migrated "the northernmost"-more than 400 kilometers away from their original habitat, Xishuangbanna Mengyangzi Reserve, and about 100 kilometers away from Kunming city. They are getting closer to the urban life circle where humans gather.
According to CCTV News, the Asian elephant group that had stayed in Eshan County for 6 days was found near Liulong Highway at around 19:00 on May 29. The elephant group has entered the Hongta District of Yuxi City.
On May 29, the Forestry and Grass Bureau of Yunnan Province announced that it would “persuade the elephants to return” to the north and take various measures to prevent the elephants from moving north, and gradually return to their original habitats in Pu'er or Xishuangbanna.
Because a baby elephant in the herd was injured once, the elephant herd is called the "broken nose family".
An expert who has tracked Asian elephants for many years analyzed to The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) that many years ago they discovered that the disorderly migration of Asian elephants would bring great harm to humans and elephants.
The expert pointed out that the 15 wild elephants of the "broken nose family" heading north were originally inhabited in the Mengyang Reserve of Xishuangbanna Prefecture and began to migrate north in March 2020.
At the end of last year, the elephant group went to Simao District, Pu'er City, where signs of migration appeared, and then went to Jinggu County, and then wandered back and forth between Jinggu County and Ning'er County. At that time, it was the best time to "persuade to return", but unfortunately I missed it. Then the group of wild elephants went to Mohei Town, Mojiang County, and Yuanjiang County of Yuxi City, all the way north.
Habitat of the "broken nose family"
"15 wild elephants moved all the way north and they are close to Kunming." Xinhua News Agency released the news in the early morning of May 29, which means that these wild elephants are far away from their original habitat-Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Meng The adopted child protection area has more than 400 kilometers.
The Mengyangzi Sanctuary is known as the paradise of Asian elephants in official propaganda materials.
Public information shows that Asian elephants in my country are mainly distributed in the three prefectures of Xishuangbanna, Pu'er, and Lincang in Yunnan, with only about 300 elephants. There are more than 270 wild elephants in Xishuangbanna, and there are more than 90 elephants in and around the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve. Wild elephants, including the "broken nose family" who went north this time, accounted for one-third of the entire Xishuangbanna.
However, the Mengyangzi Reserve is also a place where human and elephant conflicts are concentrated within Jinghong City.
The Paper previously reported that elephants in the Meng adopted child protection zone frequently enter the village for food, causing elephant conflicts and even death. In order to alleviate the conflicts, on July 20, 2017, China’s first Asian elephant fence pilot village project was managed by The Protection Bureau of the Reserve was launched. A total of RMB 1.72 million was invested in the two village groups of Guanping Village, Guanping Village, Dadugang Township, Jinghong City, and a total of 1.72 million yuan was built to build a 1,350-meter fence to enclose villagers’ homes with special geographical locations. Get up to prevent elephants from entering the village.
In response to wild elephants entering the village for food and the "broken nose family" all the way northward, Zhang Lixiang, professor of ecology at Beijing Normal University, analyzed by Peng Mei News that in the past 20 years, the area of the Asian elephant's habitat has been severely reduced, from 3,816.02 km2 in 2000. Reduced to the current 2,263.54 km2, a decrease of 1,552.48 km2 (40%); In addition, compared with the Asian elephant habitat in 2000, the habitat in 2018 was more fragmented, more dispersed, severely disturbed by humans, and less continuity. .
He believes that the reduction in the area and quality of the habitat may aggravate the conflict between humans and elephants.
This is the root of Asian elephants' proliferation and migration from Xishuangbanna.
Previously, Zhang Li said in an interview with Guangming Daily that under external pressures such as food shortages in the dry season and compression of habitat space, elephants will be forced to go out to find new habitats, walking and testing, and if they do not find a suitable new one. They may come back where they live, and if they find a suitable habitat, they may stay for a long time.
"If 9.6% of the native tropical rainforest vegetation in the Mengyang Reserve is used to grow rubber and tea, it will not only bring economic benefits, but also affect the integrity of the ecosystem, and it will have a particularly large impact on the protection of Asian elephants. The value of system services is reduced by 30% to 40%."
On May 23, "Guangming Daily" reported that since the 1960s, for the needs of national economic construction, Xishuangbanna promoted rubber planting locally, splitting the original vegetation map.
In recent years, the local rubber planting area has been stable, but the tea tree planting area has increased, and the suitable habitat for Asian elephants whose main activity area is the valley rain forest has further decreased.
"The large-scale human engineering development has exacerbated the islandization of elephant habitats. The genetic exchange between different groups has been blocked, and the problem of population decline caused by inbreeding has become prominent. Traditionally, the buffer zone between humans and elephants has gradually disappeared, and elephants have encountered humans. Naturally, the odds are greatly increased." Zhang Li said.
Northward migration route map
This is not the first time the "broken nose family" moved north.
In March 2020, 16 wild elephants set off from the Meng adopted child reserve in Xishuangbanna.
In July of the same year, Pu'er City detected 16 wild elephants for the first time. The wild elephants caused one death in Dakaihe Village, Nanping Town, Simao District.
Wang Qiaoyan, a senior engineer at the Science Research Institute of Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Management Bureau, previously introduced to The Paper that according to the habits of Asian elephants, wild elephants generally do not take the initiative to attack people. The wild elephant's temperament changed drastically, "It was okay to be frightened once, there is a buffer period, and then the fright is not enough, the wild elephant is hostile."
Wang Qiaoyan gave an example. During drone monitoring and tracking, the elephants outside the mountains and forests, listen to them, and then use their trunks to wrap the branches and beat the drones. Running away, "The elephant still avoids contact with people. But the single elephant, especially the male elephant in heat, is often the most dangerous and aggressive."
In December of the same year, the "broken nose family" that went north arrived in Mojiang County, Pu'er City, and gave birth to an "baby elephant". The number of wild elephants increased to 17.
On April 16, 2021, 17 wild elephants went north and entered Yuanjiang County, Yuxi City for food; on the evening of April 24, 2 of them returned to Mojiang County, Pu'er City and found other elephant herds; in the early morning of May 16, the rest Fifteen wild elephants entered Baoxiu Town, Shiping County, Honghe Prefecture. The elephant group consisted of 6 adult female elephants, 3 male elephants, 3 sub-adult elephants, and 3 juvenile elephants.
According to Wang Qiaoyan, baby elephants from 0 to 1 years old can freely shuttle under the mother's belly; 2 to 3 year old baby elephants are as tall as the front legs of the mother elephant; when 3 to 5 years old, the baby elephant’s The height reaches above the front legs of the female elephant to the ears of the adult elephant; when it is 15 years old, the head reaches about the shoulders of the adult elephant, and they will be regarded as adult elephants. Their average life span is 65 years old, and there are also old elephants up to ninety years old.
Wang Qiaoyan said that Asian elephants are like humans in many ways. For example, they live in familial groups, but the elephants do not necessarily belong to one family. Sometimes the two families merge together, and the mother elephants who take the lead help each other take care of their children.
Their world follows the matrilineal clan's ruling system with a clear division of labor.
When feeding in the wild, the baby elephant is especially taken care of by the elephant herd. It is not only protected by the mother elephant, but also by its elder brothers and sisters. Their food materials include more than 100 kinds of corn, rice, sugar cane, and various fruits.
The older female elephants lead the elephant herd in a "one" shape during the process of foraging and migration. There are adult elephants guarding on the left and right, with little protected elephants in the middle, and finally a vigilant elephant, "Warning" The elephants generally distanced themselves from the elephant herd, and once something happened, they would neigh and step on the ground to warn the elephants."
At 20 o'clock on May 24, 15 wild elephants migrated to Eshan County, Yuxi City, and moved around Daweidu Village.
Among them, a young elephant was "drunk" in the Dawei Duxiaozhai group because he foraged about 200 kilograms of distiller's grains on the same day. After sleeping, he broke away from the elephant group.
The staff at the front line to track and detect wild elephants told The Paper that after the elephant was "drunk", experts assessed and arrested him alive, because the elephant herd would look for the lost elephant, which would threaten the lives and property of residents along the way. After the assessment, the risk factor was deemed too high, and he gave up.
At about 22:00 on the 25th, the "drunken" baby elephant was found by the female elephant who led the elephant herd. After the baby elephant joined the team, a group of 15 elephants entered the old village of Yangjinfang, Eshan County; at 19:00 on the 26th, The elephant group entered Shuangjiang Street, Eshan County.
At 17:05 on May 27, the elephant group entered the west side of the No. 1 Middle School of Eshan County, with a straight-line distance of less than 400 meters. The elephant group passed through the county town that night.
On May 29, the wild elephant group entered the mountainous woodland on the north side of the county seat, making it more difficult to track and observe. The unmanned aerial vehicle search team of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Corps continued to track the object group with unmanned aerial vehicles.
At present, 15 wild elephants are about 100 kilometers away from the urban area of Kunming.
According to a notice issued by Yunnan, from April 16 to May 27, 2021, the elephant group caused a total of 412 incidents in Yuanjiang County and Shiping County, directly destroying 842 mu of crops, and a preliminary estimate of direct economic losses of nearly 6.8 million yuan. There were no casualties.
Next will "persuade to return"
On May 29, the Yunnan Forestry and Grass Bureau announced that the next step, the Provincial Forestry and Grass Bureau, the Asian Elephant Research Center of the National Forestry and Grass Administration, the Yuxi Forest and Grass Bureau, the Eshan County Government and relevant departments will continue to make full efforts to monitor, prevent and control. Strengthen on-site guidance, do a good job in safety prevention and control to ensure the safety of the people's lives, and take various measures to prevent the elephant herd from moving north, so that the elephant herd will gradually return to the original habitat of Pu'er or Xishuangbanna.
An expert in Yunnan who has tracked Asian elephants for many years analyzed to The Paper that the best time to "persuade to return" was missed.
He said that in 2020, the "broken nose family" started to migrate from the Mengyangzi Reserve, and then ran to Jinggu County. After arriving in Jinggu County, they wandered north and south between Jinggu and Ning'er. The best time to return is "the people keep chasing away, they have nowhere to go."
The expert pointed out that after years of observation, they found that the disorderly migration of wild elephants will bring great harm to both humans and elephants. When wild elephants show signs of going northward, appropriate human intervention should be made to allow them to return to their original state. Habitat.
According to the expert’s analysis, the Mengyangzi Reserve is 1.5 million mu, and its east and west sides are large enough to meet the activities and foraging of elephants in the area. For example, enclosing a part of the Mengyangzi Reserve can prevent wild elephants from spreading outside the reserve. Migration.
The expert suggested that there is food for wild elephants in the Mengyangzi Sanctuary, and if you feed them a little bit manually, it will not hurt people, and it will be more effective in management. The surrounding villages will also become elephant “herders”. It is the Wild Elephant Valley, where you can conduct high-end tourism similar to observations.
He believes that returning to the habitat is the best way to deal with the out-of-control elephant herd.
If no one intervenes, the elephant group will continue to the north to Kunming, to the left is Xinping County, and to the right are Tonghai County and Yuxi City. If the elephant group arrives at Tonghai County and Yuxi Hongta District, it will be very bad, because this area belongs to Pingba. They are all villagers’ vegetable plots. “If the wild elephants don’t eat anything, it will bring huge losses. They won’t eat much, and they will be trampled on and ruined.”
The above-mentioned experts believe that since it is necessary to "persuade to return", there should be a complete plan for the 400-kilometer road.
It must be led by the forestry and grass department, and work with the local city and county government departments in Yuxi to take a step-by-step human intervention method. If you have no experience, you can recruit professionals from Xishuangbanna. Xishuangbanna has successful experience in this area. The head wild elephant was successfully transported to Menghai after anesthesia.
For example, you must consciously feed sugar cane and other foods in the front, and then use explosive bombs and firecrackers to drive them moderately, and drone monitoring is needed in the air. "If you just want to encircle the elephants on the mountain, you can’t stop them. In winter, the temperature over there is not suitable for elephants to inhabit, they will return after all."
The above-mentioned experts pointed out that there are two routes for the elephant group to return to the Mengyangzi Reserve in Xishuangbanna.
One of them is the route from Jiangcheng to Xiaohei River after returning from the original road. In addition, there is also a route to the west of Simao District, Pu'er City. Both routes can reach the Mengyangzi Reserve.
"Don't look at them migrating northward for so long, but more than 400 kilometers, if it goes smoothly, the elephants can reach Mengyang in about 20 days." The expert who has been following the elephants for a long time said.
The Paper Journalist Wang Wanchun, Liao Yan, Xiong Qiang, intern Zhu Yixin, Zhang Ruohan