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The media circus around China’s famous wandering elephants ignores the habitat loss driving the animals, say critics
- A travelling group of elephants driven from their home by habitat loss, has captured global attention
- Photos of the elephants lying down and taking a siesta in the mountains was reported around the world
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Every day a small army of 14 drones, more than 100 trucks, and hundreds of people are trying to change the travel path of a group of 15 elephants that have caught the world’s attention.
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It has been months since a herd of 15, originally 17, elephants left their home in the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan province, trekking 500km north in search for a new habitat, and a week since they entered the outskirts of the provincial capital Kunming.
Every step of the way, hundreds of thousands of eyes watched. News of the elephants lying down and taking a siesta in the mountains was read over 210 million times on Weibo. It has gradually become a media circus, but one with little reporting or discussion about the reasons behind their migration, which is the loss of almost half their habitat in the last two decades.
The elephants, nicknamed “Broken Trunk Family” because the leader had an injured and shortened trunk, were first spotted nearly 100km north of Xishuangbanna in April.
In late May, they entered Yuxi’s Eshan village, walking along the main road and banging on residents’ houses. In June, they entered the outskirts of Kunming.
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