【洞头区】China's Efforts ：Behind The Safe Migration of Asian Elephants

谢章哲 2021-07-29 17:32:39

Asian Elephants’ migration from Yunnan to north area which began in early June has already become a hot topic of international media, who paid continuous attention on it. Many international netizens are also amused by elephants’ cute sleeping, eating, playing and traveling. Asian Elephants have attracted countless fans on international social media platforms.

Behind the safe migration of Asian elephants is the long term efforts to protect nature and wild life from China.In recent years, it has become normal for Asian elephants to go outside the protected areas, and the habitat distribution of Asian elephants in China has far exceeded the existing protected areas. In order to provide better habitats for Asian elephants, Yunnan has taken various measures to build their homes. A number of nature reserves have been established in Xishuangbanna, increasing the actual area of nature reserves from 3.6 million mu to 6.228 million mu at present. Pu 'er city plans to build a 10,000-mu food source base to provide important supplies for Asian elephants during the food shortage season. In Xishuangbanna, more than 8,000 mu of habitat and food source areas for Asian elephants have been restored, and plants such as reed reed, plantains and bamboo, which Asian elephants like to eat, have been extensively planted.

Behind the safe migration of Asian elephants is the hard work of detection and early warning personnel along the route. Videos of wild elephants sleeping, playing rough-and-tumble and playing in the mud that circulate online are almost all aerial shots taken by monitoring and warning personnel. Most of the time, they keep their drones above 100 meters to minimize the disturbance of the herd, and sometimes they simply turn to telescopes when the herd is at rest or has a good view. Monitoring and early warning teams along the line undertake high-risk monitoring and high-intensity work. In order to avoid conflicts with lost elephants and humans, monitoring and warning personnel need to be highly focused.

Behind the safe migration of the Asian elephant is a continuous effort to detect the safety behind it. In China, how to protect and manage the growing Asian elephants, which account for one percent of the world's population, and how to mitigate "human-elephant conflict" is largely a technical problem, and maintaining a safe distance between humans and elephants is the key to solving the problem. In 2017, two full-time monitors in the township were equipped with a monitoring drone. Yang and his team members not only have "sky eye", but also "infrared night vision" ability, which enables continuous monitoring and early warning day and night. From the alert information report to release, the fastest only 12 seconds. In a sense, monitoring and warning is also a race against time to ensure a safe distance for human elephants because of their strong off-road ability and rapid movement.