by A poor ᴡɪʟᴅ elephant got sᴛᴜᴄᴋ in a pond in China while walking and it needed an immediate help. People who saw the incident called the ᴡɪʟᴅʟɪꜰᴇ officials as there were 3 other elephants in the pond!
In China’s Yunnan Province, locals reported that four elephants fell into a deep pond in the middle of the forest. It must have been raining at that time or just rained because the surrounding area was very muddy. And the elephants may have sʟɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ and fallen into the pond. The local residents, who saw the elephants in the pond, alerted ᴡɪʟᴅʟɪꜰᴇ officials to help ʀᴇsᴄᴜᴇ the elephants. There are only 300 Asian elephants in existence in China and for the local residents, it was a community effort to protect these remaining elephants.
However, all the elephants were able to get out of the bond, and just one was not able to make it till the ʀᴇsᴄᴜᴇʀs arrived. They couldn’t get into the deep pond and push him out because the elephant was too heavy for them. Elephants after all weighed an average of 11,000lbs. It was a very hard mission until a great idea came to one ʀᴇsᴄᴜᴇʀ’s mind, which was breaking part of the wall to let the water of bond be out.
The resident grabbed a sledgehammer and pounded the wall away. He broke just enough of the concrete wall to give the elephant enough leverage. And it worked. The elephant saw the broken wall and it was enough to pull himself up and out of the pond. Thank goodness, the elephant was out of ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ now. Chen Zhiyu of the Liushun Town Forest Service Center shared: “After the elephant got out, the elephant kept looking back at us. We thought it was expressing its gratitude. It gazed at us for about two minutes before leaving.”
It was a great idea as the elephant was able to finally get out! It seemed that the Asian elephant just knew who saved it and gazed at the for more than 2 mins as if it saluted them! JourneyMan Smitty: “The intelligence of the elephant to climb out through the broken part of the wall. Awesome job to the people who helped. Those elephants have good memories he’s going to remember that for as long as he lives.”
Asian elephants are ᴇɴᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀᴇᴅ and there are almost three hundred of them in the ᴡɪʟᴅ in China! Human population growth, rapid urbanization, infrastructure development, and commercial agriculture expansion all contribute to habitat loss and fragmentation, the most significant ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛ to Asian elephants. Since 1988, the Asian elephant has been designated a Class 1 protected animal in China’s ᴡɪʟᴅʟɪꜰᴇ Protection Law.
