Bao Mingwei examines the elephants
Xiong Chaoyong accompanied the elephant for a walk
Bao Mingwei and Xiong Chaoyong measured the body of the baby elephant
Xiong Chaoyong took the elephant close to nature
Chen Jiming feeds the sheep
The "wild elephant tour group" of 15 heads heading north in Yunnan has attracted national attention for more than two months. In this "journey north" of national attention, Asian elephants give the impression of being sometimes cute and sometimes dangerous. Images of baby elephants selling cuteness and news of elephants sleeping in the forest have become interesting talk, but trampling on crops and destroying houses along the way makes people marvel at their destructive power.
Behind the two labels of dumb and culprit, what is the character of the elephant? Can it be in harmony with human beings? At the Chinese Asian Elephant Seed Rescue and Breeding Center in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, the reporter heard many stories about "human-elephant harmony".
injection
Try your best to coax it to cooperate
On June 19, Bao Mingwei, an elephant doctor who has been tracking and monitoring the "Wild Elephant Tour Group" in the north for more than 20 days, immediately threw himself into the treatment of elephant sheep after returning to the China Asian Elephant Breeding and Rescue Center (hereinafter referred to as the Breeding Center) in Xishuangbanna.
The sheep girl fell on her left front foot while foraging in the forest, and although there was no trauma, her leg was swollen. In order to be able to give it a smooth injection, in the afternoon, several "elephant fathers" have been accompanying the sheep, and someone broke a carrot into two or three pieces and put it in the bucket in front of the sheep girl.
"Giving an injection to a sheep girl is like coaxing a child, to give it delicious, to coax it to cooperate, when the injection we 'adults' must always accompany it, this year's 6-year-old personality is indeed the same as a child, will be spoiled, ask for someone to accompany." Yang Niu's "elephant father" Chen Jiming said.
After the sheep had eaten a bucket of carrots, the needle water was also matched. The "elephant fathers" brought a second bucket of carrots, and while distracting it with food, several people supported its body, and Bao Mingwei first disinfected the ear with the richest capillaries with an alcohol cotton ball and began to inject.
The baby elephant was also afraid of pain, and when it saw the elephant doctor holding the syringe close to itself, it pulled out its leg and avoided it to the wall. The strength of several adults was also difficult to compete with the 6-year-old baby elephant, so they had to hold it and shout as they walked: "Obedient, don't move." After feeling the resistance of the human arm and the gentle language, the sheep lady stopped. After many repetitions, the needle water was smoothly injected into the blood vessels of the sheep.
monitoring
The elephant's mind could not be guessed
The weather in Xishuangbanna was sweltering, and in order to give the sheep a needle, Bao Mingwei's clothes on the front and back of his chest were soaked with sweat, and beads of sweat were on his forehead and nose. In fact, he has been really tired lately, in order to track the "wild elephant tour group" going north, he and his colleagues worked sixteen or seven hours a day, and once slept only 3 hours a day for 3 consecutive days.
Why are they so tired? Because they are the group of people in all of China who know the life habits of Asian elephants and even the temperament of elephants. In Asan, Hongta District, Jinning, and Yimen, they provided basic advice for the decision-making of the frontline command to ensure the safety of the "Wild Elephant Tour Group" and the villagers along the route.
On May 27, when the "Wild Elephant Tour Group" arrived in Asan, the forestry and grassland department of Xishuangbanna Prefecture sent a team of 11 people to Asan to cooperate with the forestry and grassland departments of Yuxi City and Asan County.
Bao Mingwei and 4 other staff members also set off with the team. Bao Mingwei introduced that since the forestry and grassland department of Asan County is the first time to deal with the entry of wild elephants, the working group of 11 people in Xishuangbanna Prefecture conducts science popularization of local village cadres according to the habits of elephants, and puts forward basic opinions on where to put what food and how to guide them.
After a male elephant is out of herd, they are responsible for tracking and monitoring the elephant. When the drone can't take off when it rains, they go into the mountains and forests to look for the footprints of the elephants and track them to determine the location of the elephants.
Bao Mingwei's mobile phone has several photos of the elephant, and one of the photos shows a male elephant walking in the farmland, and the elephant's body occupies 2/3 of the picture. This is his mobile phone shooting when he is tens of meters away from the elephant, the mountain slope after the rain is steep and slippery, everyone is worried about the sudden encounter with the wild elephant, fortunately there are thrills along the way. After about 20 days on the front line, the group was replaced by colleagues and returned to Xishuangbanna in late June.
"Now the temperature in Asan is not low, and the food in the woods and fields along the way is still quite abundant, and they will not get sick for the time being." As for when the "wild elephant tour group" will be able to return to its hometown, Bao Mingwei frankly said: The elephant's mind cannot be guessed.
bailout
Find a way to feed the medicine and inject
On the afternoon of July 7, 2005, the staff of the Wild Elephant Valley Scenic Area found a small elephant with a left hind leg caught by a trapped beast in the river channel under the observatory, and it was constantly swinging its injured leg on the side of the river three or four meters away from the elephant herd. The reserve staff and forest police rushed to confirm that it was a baby elephant of about 3 years old, and if the iron clip was not removed in time, its wound could become infected, causing it to die.
After that, a rescue team of 81 people came to the Wild Elephant Valley to track down the elephant herd and look for opportunities to rescue the baby elephants. Bao Mingwei recalled that when the rescuers tracked the injured elephant, shortly after shooting the anesthetic bullet into the hip of the elephant with an anesthesia gun, the injured elephant passed out. When the elephant saw that the baby elephant was unable to move around and could not lie on the ground, it constantly used its nose to lift the baby elephant and encourage it to move forward, and the staff could not get close at this time. It wasn't until after the elephants had left that the staff stepped forward to pry open the trap. Seeing that the wound on its leg was deep and bone-visible, and the muscles had begun to decay, the staff immediately treated its wound. But the next day, the injured baby elephant escaped, and dozens of police officers managed to find it again and send it to the Wild Elephant Valley for treatment.
During the rescue, people gave the baby elephant a nice name " Ranran " . It means that it comes from nature and eventually returns to nature.
In the early days of being rescued, he was very hostile to human beings. It uses its nose to flip over the bucket of water given to it, and as soon as someone approaches, it hits it with its nose and hits it with its head, threatening people not to come closer. Eventually, the doctors came up with a clever idea — carrying a bamboo pole with needles in it, injecting Ranran through the guardrail, or using a blowpipe to inject it. In order to make Ranran take the medicine, they stuffed the pill into the banana and threw it to eat. But after the little elephant ate it once, he tasted that there were pills in the banana, and the next time he ate this banana, the clever ran would use his nose and feet to squeeze out the pills in the banana. In desperation, the doctors changed food every day, taking turns using apples, pineapples, mangoes and other fruits. But it was still difficult to resolve the hostility toward humans, and it was not until the elephant trainer Xiong Chaoyong came to the Wild Elephant Valley that the situation began to change.
Xiong Chaoyong is a Native of Pu'er, and after graduating from high school in 1999, he liked elephants and entered an acting company and took elephants to various provinces and cities to perform. But after 6 years of work, tired of the constant rush of life, he resigned and returned to Kunming, planning to find another job. It just so happened that Ran Ran had just been rescued at that time, so under the introduction of a zoo in Kunming, he came to the Wild Elephant Valley and became Ran Ran's "elephant father".
The first time he saw Ranran, Xiong Chaoyong saw a small elephant in a state of panic. The wound continued to hurt, and the injection and flushing of the wound increased the pain again, so the little elephant hid when he saw people, and hit people when he saw them. After spending many years with elephants, he came every day to feed carrots to please baby elephants.
At first, ran was very vigilant, and no matter how much carrots were fed, it would only eat a few. But when he found that Xiong Chaoyong came to feed it food every day and did not "hurt" it, he gradually let down his guard. As his injuries improved, after two months of xiong Chaoyong's time with the baby elephant, Ran ran finally accepted him - no longer making aggressive moves, and eating more carrots. At this time, the doctor's treatment of it is also much smoother.
Since then, the breeding center has rescued a number of wild elephants. There are wild elephants "Kunliu" who accidentally fall down 80 meters deep valley after fighting with other elephants, blind in their right eye, and injured internal organs; there are wild elephants "Pingping" who are infected with suppuration on their buttocks and urinate incontinence, and there are baby elephants abandoned by wild elephants. Once these injured elephants are found, they need to be transported back to the breeding centre for follow-up treatment. Just like when they first arrived, they were in panic and pain, did not trust human beings, and only by relying on the care and treatment of "elephant fathers" and elephant doctors did they slowly accept human beings.
harmonious
There are feelings in the day and night together
The baby elephant "Mingming" in the breeding center likes to be close to people very much. It is as tall as a human being, likes to play with water, and as long as someone takes a water pipe to bathe it, it will lie on the ground and stretch out its limbs so that the water can rush to its belly. Even when it goes out to forage, it does not follow the elephant herd, only grazing around people.
The rescued 6-year-old baby elephant sheep girl, nicknamed "Man Comes Crazy", was abandoned by the elephant herd a week after birth and had a severe purulent infection in the umbilicus. In order to rescue it, Chen Jiming and 4 other "elephant fathers" moved the beds into the "treatment ward", and the 4 people worked two shifts and took turns to take care of them for nearly a year. It is also because it has been cared for by humans since childhood, and the sheep lady is extremely friendly and trusting to humans.
At the breeding center, each elephant has one or two "elephant fathers". They started working at 7:30 a.m., and after the morning meeting, they began to clean up the feces in the elephant house, take the infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the elephants, and see if the elephants had a fever or a cold. Elephants with colds, like people, clear their noses and run non-stop.
Whenever this happens, Bao Mingwei will bring needles to give injections to the elephants, and then he must be accompanied by "Elephant Daddy". "Elephants hate doctors the most, and whenever I get to them, they get alert and stare at me with unfriendly eyes." Bao Mingwei said.
"Elephants are very warm animals, wild elephants have little contact with people, and they are naturally defensive of humans. But when it understands that you are not threatening it but helping it, it can also let down its defenses, and people and elephants can develop feelings in the day and night. Chen Jiming said. He rescued the Asian elephant Kunliu, and through daily feeding and contact for about a year, Kunliu eliminated his hostility and integrated into the rescued elephant herd. As long as the sheep girl meets every two or three days, she will always follow him for a walk, even the "second father" can't stop it.
adapt
Accompany the elephants for rewilding training
After taking the elephant's temperature, if they are unharmed, after 8:30 every day, the elephant will go for a walk with the "elephant daddy" in the deep rainforest around the breeding center. At this time, time is decided by the elephants, one is to let them adapt to nature, and the other is to let the elephants eat in the mountains. "Elephant dads" will also follow the elephants and spend the day with them in the forest.
Xiong Chaoyong recalled: "Wherever I went before, I would follow me wherever I went. In order to integrate it into the herd as soon as possible, in the third year, I worked hard to 'stuff' it into the herd. Rewild training is very important, and baby elephants can follow elephants up the mountain and learn techniques that many people can't teach. For example, how to step on the bamboo that stands in the way and identify which foods can be eaten. ”
Following the elephant up the mountain sounds relaxed, but it is actually a very sinful thing. Elephants go into the mountains to take the route is "straight up and straight down", "elephant father" often follow the elephant, the elephant stepped on the place seems to be flat, but the soil is soft, if you are not careful, you may slip.
The rainy season is the hardest, not only because it wets clothes and pants, but also because it enduring the bites of ants and mosquitoes in the jungle. Every year, "Elephant Daddy" is bitten by ants forty or fifty bites. The mosquitoes in the tropical rainforest are even more severe, and there are different types of mosquitoes in the morning, middle and evening, no matter how to drive them away, the mosquitoes are still chasing and flocking.
The most dangerous time is when the assisted elephant encounters and clashes with the wild elephant. Although the wild elephant observation team in the Wild Elephant Valley is scattered in the surrounding hills every day to observe and report on the appearance of wild elephants, and the "elephant fathers" also choose areas without wild elephants when they carry out rewilding training, there are still several times a year when this sudden encounter occurs. In most cases, when different herds of elephants encounter each other, the elephants are friendly and will use their noses to touch each other's ways to communicate, as short as a few minutes, as long as half an hour. But if you encounter an elephant in heat, there is a possibility of a fight.
Once, Xiong Chaoyong and his colleagues heard Ping Ping and Ran suddenly roaring angrily in the jungle in front of them, and rushed to the front to see that Ping Ping had already fought with a wild elephant, and the timid Ran Ran was watching the battle. In order not to injure the elephants, the "elephant fathers" ran to Pingping's side in spite of safety, and brought back Pingping and Ran with only three or four meters away from the wild elephants. Xiong Chaoyong remembered that it was the most dangerous one, at first the wild elephant did not attack people, but when they ran with a flat and calm, the wild elephant chased after them for a while.
Every day at 4 p.m., the elephants feed in the woods, return to the river near the breeding center, take a muddy bath and go home. After the "elephant father" brought the elephant back, he rinsed the elephant with clean water and then enjoyed dinner.
The breeding center provides rewilding training assistance for wild Asian elephants that have difficulties in surviving in the wild, helping wild elephants return to nature. "We are ready to release the elephants into the forest if experts from higher authorities think they can be released." Xiong Chaoyong said. Chief reporter Cheng Quanwen
Courtesy of China Asian Elephant Seed Source Rescue and Breeding Center
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Source: Spring City Evening News