As wild Asian elephants move north and south, a photograph of elephants lying on their sides hugging each other went viral on social networks. Zhang Xiong, the squad leader of the Emergency Communications and Vehicle Service Support Brigade of the Yunnan Provincial Forest Fire Brigade and the leader of the A group of the Wild Asian Elephant Search and Monitoring Detachment, was the photographer of this photo. Zhang Xiong did not think that such a record would become an "internet celebrity", but it was indeed the first time he and his teammates saw sleeping elephants, and in addition to this photo, these sleeping elephants have another story of friendship.
Zhang Xiong and his teammates were not only touched by the elephants, but also by the local villagers who supported their work and welcomed the arrival of the elephants. Along the way, elephants are under the meticulous care of humans.
See herds of elephants sleeping regularly in small sizes
New Yellow River: How did you get the elephants sleeping in each other's arms?
Zhang Xiong: It was around 10:30 a.m. on June 7, which was our shift time. Before the shift, I need to determine the number and location of the elephant herd, just when I operate the drone to reach the top of the elephant group, the first picture is to see the elephant group sleeping regularly, they are basically rolled noses, curled legs, and the direction of sleep is in one direction. At that time, when I saw this picture, I was also more shocked and curious, in our usual monitoring process, we felt that the elephant herd was more naughty, but I did not expect that they were sleeping like this. This picture also subverted my cognition, because after monitoring for so long, we have not seen the sleeping elephant herd, which is also a precious moment recorded.
There is another picture of a three-headed female elephant sleeping around the baby elephant in the middle, the baby elephant slowly wakes up and runs outside, and has been dancing her nose to try to climb out, but several female elephants still tightly surround it in the middle, which also reflects a kind of maternal love.
We also saw this picture for the first time, and we wanted to take a picture and share it with the team members, and later learned that it had become an "internet celebrity", which was unexpected.
Simple villagers take care of the elephant herd
New Yellow River: How did the local people react to the sudden arrival of elephants during the monitoring process?
Zhang Xiong: The local people not only support our work, but also love and welcome the whole elephant herd. What impressed me more was that these few words were spoken by some relatively simple local villagers. A villager said that after eating the crops, they can be replanted next year, and if the elephants are damaged, they will not be there. Another villager said that the elephant did not eat the crops on purpose, it liked to eat it, let it eat, and it could not eat much. In fact, we later learned from experts that an adult elephant eats about 200 kilograms a day. Another fellow learned that elephants prefer to eat bud rice, and just when the elephants happened to pass through their village, they cut their own bud valley and donated them to the elephants for feeding, afraid that the elephants would not have enough to eat.
In fact, it is a beast
New Yellow River: During the monitoring process, have you ever "faced" an elephant?
Zhang Xiong: The first time we faced an elephant up close was around 4 days or so during our monitoring mission. It was on the way to a makeshift special session, and we were just moving to a new monitoring point, and all the team members got out of the car to see if it met the monitoring standards. Just as we were looking around, we suddenly saw a very large elephant head.
We still have some anxieties in our hearts, but we have learned from experts and have some countermeasures. Because it was night, the outline of the whole elephant was not clearly seen, and an elephant head was clearly seen. We held our breath and stopped. A single elephant may be the leading elephant, who is descending the mountain to explore the way. As long as we don't take the initiative to provoke it, it may not hurt us. We looked at it for about 10 seconds, and it probably sensed that we wouldn't hurt it, and it slowly walked in the other direction.
In fact, the whole scene also makes us feel excited and excited, although we see the elephant in the drone lens every day, but this is the first time to see it more intuitively at close range. Personally, the feeling of seeing an elephant for the first time is not fear, but that this elephant is more cute, and I still think in my heart, whether to go up and touch it, but the next second I feel that it is actually a beast, dangerous, or try to keep a distance.
(New Yellow River reporter: Jiang Dan)
Editor: Han Luying Proofreader: Yang Hefang