【Haichuan Teahouse】Heading north, 412 incidents in 40 days – what exactly do they want?

According to the Qilu Evening News, on April 16, 17 Asian elephants that were wandering around entered Yuanjiang County in Yuxi City from Mojiang County in Pu’er City. This was the first time that a group of wild elephants had entered Yuanjiang County since monitoring data became available. After staying in the Yuanjiang area for a month, 15 Asian elephants set off on their journey. So, how did 17 Asian elephants turn into 15? According to staff from the Publicity Department of Yuxi City, the two elephants that got separated from the group failed to keep up with the rest because they went to farmers’ homes to drink distilled alcohol. The two of them have returned to Mojiang in Pu’er together, while the remaining 15 elephants safely arrived in Shiping, Honghe Prefecture. It is reported that this is the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China that a herd of wild elephants has entered Honghe Prefecture.

Group tours – having fun non-stop along the way;P

At around 11 a.m. on May 25, police officers and auxiliary personnel spotted an elephant herd near the Laoxiongqing Reservoir. One of the young elephants had eaten about 200 pounds of distillers’ grains that day and became \"drunk,\" collapsing in the Dawidu Xiaozhai area; it fell asleep and thus got separated from the herd. But when it woke up, it wasn’t panicked; instead, it had a great time near the Dawei Du Xiaozhai area, sometimes walking along the field ridges, sometimes taking baths in the ponds, and sometimes playing in the fields. On the evening of May 25, the \"drunk\" little elephant finally returned to the herd. So how did the little elephant get back? You should know that they’ve never been here – there’s no navigation and no phones either.

Elephants use infrasound for long-distance communication; infrasound is a type of low-frequency sound that humans cannot hear. It can travel for over ten kilometers in the absence of interference, and even with some interference, it can still travel for several thousand kilometers. Moreover, elephants are very intelligent; they know when to make sounds so that they can travel the farthest distance. They often wait until dusk or dawn, when the air is coldest, as lower temperatures allow sounds to travel further.

And if there is an emergency or the distance is really great, they have another means of transportation for longer distances, which is stomping their feet. Unlike us humans, stamping our feet might only cause numbness in our feet, but when a group of elephants stamp their feet together, it produces a very loud rumbling sound. Compared to infrasound communication, this method can travel farther, reaching distances of several dozen kilometers. And the elephants’ unique feet allow them to avoid having to crouch down and use their ears to detect vibrations in the ground. When ground vibrations are transmitted from the front feet, leg bones, and shoulder bones to the middle ear, they can detect these signals; this is one of the reasons why elephants are able to predict earthquakes.