Authorities have said China's herd of migrating wild elephants has moved south in Eshan County, Yunnan province.
The wild elephants headed 14 miles south between 6 p.m. Wednesday and the same time Thursday, China news media reported. According to the headquarters in charge of monitoring the elephants' migration, the rainy weather in Eshan has made monitoring and tracking the herd more difficult.
A male elephant that strayed 19 days ago is now 22 miles away in Kunming's Jinning district, the province capital.
On Thursday, 151 people were mobilized to escort the herd and warn residents, 2,327 of which were evacuated
The herd has traveled over 300 miles north from their forest habitat in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, arriving in Kunming Jun. 2.
For more than a month, authorities have dispatched police to accompany the herd, vacated highways to ease their passage, and utilized food to distract them from entering densely inhabited areas.
Chinese media reported Thursday that a team from the Tourism and Culture Industry Research Institute at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics in Kunming has proposed the establishment of an Asian elephant national park in order to better manage and restore the giant animals' habitats.
"Building a national park will fundamentally resolve the human-elephant conflict. Many people ask where these elephants are heading or where they should remain when they have finished roaming. A national park is the best destination," Ming Qingzhong, a university professor in Yunnan, said.
Asian elephants are primarily found in Yunnan and are under A-level state protection in China. Due to enhanced protection efforts, the wild elephant population in the province grew to about 300, up from 193 in the 1980s.
