Glaring Conservation Challenges: Elephant Herd Travels More Than 300 Miles, Baffles Scientists

A recent "March of the Elephants" across the southern part of China has captured the world's attention — but more importantly, highlights glaring problems on conservation and habitat loss for these endangered animals.

The herd of Asian elephants have already crossed more than 500 kilometers or 310 miles of land from their home at the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve. The protected area is located in the southwestern tip of Yunnan province, southwestern China and already bordering Laos.

Finding a Place to Stay

Experts believe that the march of the elephants begant last spring, with the giant beasts moving northward and have been sighted in a number of villages and towns in the region, as reported by BBC. The elephants were even reported knocking down doors, trespassing shops, taking food, as well as playing around in the mud and even taking a nap in the middle of a forest.

The mammoth march has also left crops trampled and hoovered up in the wake — leaving more than $1 million worth of damages and thousands of residents having to temporarily evacuate their homes.

"For some reason these elephants felt that their traditional home range was no longer suitable... and then they just left to find somewhere else," says Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, an elephant specialist with the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, in a statement with Agence France-Presse (AFP). Campos-Arceiz added that the Asian elephants currently have no destination in mind, wandering around until they find a suitable place to call home.

Additionally, local officials are monitoring the marching herd with drones 24/7, expressing concerns that the elephants could go on a rampage if they get stressed. As they wander closer to human communities, the noise from urban places such as machines and automobiles could mess up with their ability to communicate with each other or even sense the environment around them. Elephants generally communicate with each other using infrasonic sound, which, according to the Hyperphysics website by the Georgia State University, are sound waves below the audible sound frequency range — such as the vibration of the elephants' feet.

Campos-Arceiz additionally noted that so far, the elephants are "very healthy and look very happy" despite entering densely populated and unfamiliar locations.

The Challenge in Wildlife Conservation

Forests surrounding the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve are facing rapid deforestation to give way to tea plantations and commercial rubber tree plantations. A report from Colgate University that focuses on environmental challenges in China states that the local communities in the Xishuangbanna area have been farming tea sustainably, using existing tropical plants to provide the shade needed by the tea plants.

However, the transition of China into a communist state has placed significant pressure in the area to industrialize, starting the transformation of local forests into rubber tree plantations.

Still, China remains one of the few places in the world where the endangered Asian elephants could still thrive and their numbers increasing, thanks to the industrialist giant's strict anti-poaching laws and extensive conservation efforts.

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