Nghe An: Wild elephants leisurely walk on provincial road, vehicles dare not pass by

On December 8, Mr. Bui Nhu Da - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Chau Phong Commune (Quy Chau), said that recently, two mother and child wild elephants have been frequently returning to residential areas, causing panic among residents. "These elephants are no longer afraid of people, no matter how hard we try to chase them away, they will not leave. Luckily, they are quite docile, they do not attack people but only look for food," said Mr. Da.

According to Mr. Da, on the evening of December 7, two wild elephants came near the Dom 1 village cultural house to eat sugarcane. This area is only a few dozen meters from the houses of the people of Dom 1 village and Luong village. Therefore, many households were afraid to sleep and tried to chase the elephants away. At around 2:00 a.m. on December 8, two elephants came to rummage through food at the hut on the field of Ms. Vi Thi Hung (65 years old) and her husband.

When she discovered the two elephants, Mrs. Hung called on the locals to come and light a fire to chase them away. However, despite dozens of locals trying every way to chase them away, the mother and her baby elephants still refused to leave. The locals had no choice but to let them rummage through the hut.

On the morning of December 8, they were even bolder when they moved down Provincial Road 544 through Pu Xen slope (Chau Phong commune) to "block vehicles". According to the video recorded by local people, wild elephants stood leisurely in the middle of the provincial road for quite a while, causing all vehicles passing through here to stop.

Two wild elephants and their baby elephants on their way back to the village. Photo: Tien Hung

A few days ago, on the morning of December 3, the two elephants mentioned above came to the acacia and cassava gardens of Mr. Ha Van Tuan in Dom 1 village to pull up cassava to eat. Although Mr. Tuan and his wife and many people tried every way to chase them away, they were unsuccessful. They had to watch them eat all the cassava and grass in the garden before the elephants moved into the forest to continue to other gardens. In the following days, these two elephants refused to move deep into the forest as before, but instead hung around the flower gardens of the people and when hungry, they came out to eat, destroying the crops of many households farming there.

According to the reporter's investigation, these are the last two elephants left in Quy Chau. Their habitat is the natural forests of Chau Hanh and Chau Phong communes (Quy Chau). Previously, this herd of elephants was quite large, but was gradually killed, leaving only these two mother and child. The peak was about 30 years ago, when two male elephants in the herd were killed for their tusks. This herd no longer has the ability to develop due to the lack of male elephants.

According to statistics from Pu Mat National Park, Nghe An has about 14 to 16 wild elephants, the locality with the third largest number of wild elephants in the country (after Dak Lak and Dong Nai provinces). Of these, 11 to 13 live in the Pu Mat National Park area. The remaining 3, including 1 female elephant living alone in the area of ​​2 communes Nam Son, Bac Son of Quy Hop district and a herd of 2 mother and baby elephants in Chau Phong commune.

Although there are still quite a few wild elephant herds, most of the elephant herds in Nghe An are isolated and have no potential to develop. Many elephants have lived alone for decades, often returning to residential areas to destroy crops and conflict with humans. Without measures to merge with other herds, these elephant herds will gradually be eliminated over time.