Since May 27, the "elephant protectors" from the Forest Fire Brigade of Yunnan Province have been silently guarding behind the wild Asian elephant herds that have moved north, and today (14th), it has been a full 80 days. 80 days and nights, 24 hours of uninterrupted monitoring, every 5 minutes to report the whereabouts of wild elephants. Our camera footage recorded the day of the guardian.
Early in the morning, the elephant bearer begins a new round of monitoring
The elephant herd was still asleep in the early morning, and the team members who rushed to the front line had loaded the monitoring equipment on the car in an orderly manner, and in order to ensure that no equipment was missed, they counted back and forth many times, so that there would be no mistakes in the 24/7 monitoring process.
Yang Xiangyu, captain of the Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Detachment of the Yunnan Forest Fire Brigade:
Every 5 minutes, the position of the elephant herd is reported to the command headquarters, and whether the above requirements can be done, the following team will be led by Comrade Zhang Sijie, the leader of the flight B group, to start the operation.
By August 12, the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade had invested 32 monitoring team members to monitor the elephant herd 24 hours a day. Up to now, the drone has flown nearly 3,000 times and flown for more than 1,000 hours.
At noon, the elephant herd eats, sleeps, and plays, and the elephant bearer silently guards it
The activities of the elephant group are more regular every day, generally resting in the forest in the morning, and when the temperature is high in the afternoon, or looking for a water source to bathe and cool down, or playing with mud and sand in the humid sand, or taking a cool rest, the rest of the time under the leadership of the head elephant, the group opens the "shopping mode". Since the ambush, the temperature in Yuxi, Honghe and other places often exceeds 30 degrees Celsius, according to the monitoring team, if the drone flies at a high temperature for a long time, it will lead to performance degradation and even battery damage.
Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Task Team B Team Member Guan Yuhao:
In the event of hot weather, we will start a second drone to alternate flights, so as to cool down the other drone, so that the drone always maintains a good performance state.
In addition to the challenges of high temperatures and scorching suns. In the face of different terrain, climate, vegetation and other complex environments, the test brought to the monitoring team and monitoring equipment is also very difficult.
Tong Lei, Leader of the Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Team of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade:
Find the open land on the mountain, monitor the wild elephants on the opposite mountain, because it is rainy now, the drone will be damaged if it takes off, some time ago, the drone is also due to the operation time is too long, damaged a lot.
Although the monitoring team members face many tests, fortunately, in the afternoon, the light is good, the field of vision is wide, and the elephant group activities are more regular. The active elephant herd often posted interesting photos of their own lives and play to the monitoring team members, adding a lot of laughter to the nervous "elephant chasing" task of the team members.
At 4 p.m. on July 17, the monitoring team members photographed such a comfortable afternoon life as the elephant herd. While the elephants were collectively eating sugar cane in the sugarcane field to quench their thirst, the two baby elephants were playing and fighting on the side, and in order to gain the upper hand, the legs, nose, and back were used together, and they used their housekeeping skills.
In the evening, the elephant herd is active, and the elephant guardian continuously transitions to monitor
By around 5 p.m., the herds of elephants that have played and slept enough in the mountains and forests usually begin to forage around. The clever elephants often choose to walk down the hill, as if they already knew that there was water, crops, and, if luck, cornmeal in the homes of the common people for them to sacrifice their teeth. On the evening of June 27, the elephant herd came down from the northwest direction of Songlin Village in Furang Shed Township, Asan County, and the monitoring team discovered a new situation through unmanned aerial vehicles, and the 14-headed Asian elephant herd was divided into two groups, one group of 6 heads went northwest, and the other 8 heads did not move for a long time, staying in place and standing still.
Yan Qiyong, member of the Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Task Detachment of the Forest Fire Brigade of Yunnan Province:
The elephant herd seems to be testing us, and at this time we made a quick judgment, and we need to relay up and down so that we will not lose the elephant.
If you say, the distribution and monitoring of elephants on a sunny day is a test for the monitoring team members. On rainy nights, then, elephant keepers can only rely on foot to find the herd. As a result, it has become common for monitoring team members to meet elephant herds. In the face of this group of behemoths, the monitoring team members must always remain vigilant to ensure absolute safety.
Zhang Sijie, leader of the UAV flight B team of the Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Task Detachment of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Fighting Corps:
What impressed me the most was that when Nanshan Village was monitoring, it started to rain and the drone could not take off, and we drove to search. Our closest to the elephant herd may be less than 10 meters, and then our team members will retreat in time and report the location of the elephant herd to the headquarters in time.
Many of the members of the 24-hour non-stop shift to monitor the elephant herd have not seen their families for more than two months. After the night mission rotation break, the team members often use the short quiet time to share the day's observations with their families on the phone.
Zhang Sijie, leader of the UAV flight B team of the Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Task Detachment of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade:
We all want to see for ourselves the moment when the elephant herd returns to our homes. In fact, it is a kind of relief for our nervous hearts and emotions, and it is also a sense of accomplishment to finally complete this task.
As the night passed, it was time for the early morning task handover, and the monitoring team ushered in a new day. "I move first, I don't stop like I do" is the daily work of the monitoring team members for more than a hundred days. With the protection of the "elephant guardians" and the scientific assistance of the forward command, the northward asian elephants have crossed the main stream of the Yuan River on the evening of August 8 and continued to return south, and the overall situation of the elephant herd is stable and the elephants are safe.
(CCTV reporter Song Jianchun, Jiang Shulin, Li Hui, Zhu Shu, Hao Yijie, Liu Dong, Yunnan, Zhuhui, Bai Lian, Long Jun)
Source: CCTV News Client