An adult Asian elephant was rescued on Sunday after it got trapped in a pond in the city of Pu’er, in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
Local villagers in Liushun Town discovered that four elephants had fallen into the 2.6-meter-deep pond around 05:00 on Sunday and immediately contacted the forestry department to rescue them.
When rescue workers arrived at the site after dawn, three elephants had managed to get out of the pond with the remaining elephant left struggling to escape.
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The rescue workers used a hammer to break a hole in the edge of the pool to release some water, allowing the stranded elephant to finally escape and rejoin its companions in the forest.
“After the elephant got out, it kept looking back at us. We thought it was expressing its gratitude. It gazed at us for about two minutes before leaving,” said Chen Zhiyu, head of the local forest service center.
Rescuers said the trapped male elephant was one of a 36-member herd which migrated from Jinghong City of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture a few days ago.
Wild Asian elephants, under first-class state protection, are very rare. Only around 300 live in China, mainly distributed in the border areas of Pu’er and Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province.
