I’ve written of China’s Giant Panda and Siberian Tigers in northeast China, but I had no idea that China also had elephants and not caged in zoos but living in their natural habitat.
It it hadn’t been for Go Daddy’s CEO, Bob Parsons, shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe and stirring up PETA, a Politically Correct gang of animal lovers in the US, I may have never been curious to see if China had elephants.
I discovered China may offer a safer haven for elephants than most nations that still have pachyderms living in their natural environment.
Wild Kingdom – China’s Wild Elephant Valley
Elephant Aid says, “Most people associate China and elephants with the demand for ivory but although China only has a small number of elephants it is one of the only range states where numbers are on the rise.
“China’s elephants can only be found in the extreme south of the Yunnan province bordering Burma and Laos. Their range includes Xishuangbanna (XSNB) and the Nangunhe Nature Reserves.”
BBC – Wild Elephants in China
“The elephant is a protected species in China,” Elephant Aid says, “and the government has taken steps to conserve areas of elephant habitat including moving people out of the reserves in a bid to minimize human-elephant conflict.
“Chinese official have reported that the population is growing through both reproduction and immigration of herds from Laos. This is attributed to the lack of a threat from poachers in China and the abundant availability of fodder.”
According to Elephant.se, there are about 450 captive elephants in the US and less than 4,000 captive elephants globally. China has about 30 captive elephants.
All About Wildlife.com says there are 40 to 50 thousand wild Asian elephants and between 470,000 and 690,000 wild African Elephants.
Two hundred or more wild elephants live in China.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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