Three new Asian elephant babies have been born in Pu’er City and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
Since then, 16 wild Asian elephants have migrated north from Xishuangbanna to the Pu’er region, going through Jiangcheng, Mojiang, and other counties and districts.
When we discovered the elephant, it had already given birth to a youngster. Then, only a few days later, we found that she had another baby elephant. When the herd of elephants first arrived in this region, there were 16.
There are now 18 elephants in addition to the two newborn calves, according to Zhou Zhitao, director of the wildlife protection department of Pu’er Forestry and Grassland Bureau.
In order to avoid possible conflicts between people and elephants, local authorities have improved early warning and prevention strategies by employing locals as spectators to improve elephant tracking and monitoring.
Meanwhile, an Asian elephant named Ya Long at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Zoo gave birth to a youngster weighing 95.4 kilograms after 21 months and 19 days of gestation.
“It took the calf elephant around 20 minutes to get up. Its breathing and other physical indications have returned to normal now,” said Ji Yang, a veterinarian at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Zoo.
To ensure that the newborn is kept warm, the carers have built a fire next to the enclosure to guarantee that the room’s temperature remains above 15 degrees Celsius. Sugarcane, elephant grass, brown sugar, and other nutritious foods were also prepared for Ya Long to replenish her strength.
Currently, staff members swap shifts to ensure that a person is on-site at all times.
All Asian elephants at Xishuangbanna Tropical Zoo were rescued from the wild, some with diseases.
The Asian elephant is the flagship species of the tropical forest ecosystem and is under first-class state protection in China, with sightings most common in Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna, Pu’er, and Lincang cities.
Because female Asian elephants have a long gestation period of around 22 months, the elephant population in the wild expands very slowly.
The number of Asian elephants in Yunnan has increased over the last three decades, from 193 in the early 1980s to around 300 today.
