Fourteen wild elephants are heading south towards their protected habitat in southwest China’s Yunnan province following a 1,300-km (807-mile) trek that captured the public’s imagination, provincial officials said late on Monday. Wildlife protection officials told a press briefing the elephants safely crossed a bridge over the Yuan River, returning south towards a nature reserve administered by the city of Puer.
An emergency committee set up to handle the wild elephants, used electric fences and bait and laid artificial roads to ensure the elephants took the correct route. Yang Yingyong, a member of the committee, told reporters the migration route was “scientifically planned”. The committee will “strive to allow the elephants to return to their habitat as soon as possible and thrive,” he said.
Yunnan deployed more than 25,000 police and staff and 1,500 emergency vehicles to track and feed the elephants and guarantee public safety, said Wan Yong, head of the provincial forestry commission. More than 150,000 people were evacuated along the migration route and more than 5 million yuan ($771,000) in insurance funds disbursed to cover property damage, he said.
