A herd of wild elephants escaped from a nature reserve, tired of making their way through the fields and settlements of China. The animals lay down to sleep in the forest after they were caught in heavy rain, according to the CGTN TV channel.
According to firefighters, one of the elephants broke away from the herd, the TV channel reports. Previously, there were 15 individuals in the herd of nomadic animals.
Previous attempts to direct the elephants towards the house-presumably a nature reserve in the Xishuangbanna region-were unsuccessful, but now the herd seems to be gradually returning back, the TV channel notes.
It is reported that the exact reason for the escape of the elephants from the reserve is still not clear. According to some experts, the reason is probably that the process of protecting the environment in the former range provided the elephants with a good habitat that allows them to breed more, and therefore the animals need to disperse.
Earlier it was reported that the elephant herd in total covered about 500 km and approached one of the major cities in Yunnan province, Kunming. The provincial authorities have deployed drones and a team of hundreds of people to constantly monitor the elephants and predict the animals ‘ route, as well as provide local residents with the necessary assistance during an evacuation.
