Human activities not likely to be cause of elephants' migration

The unexpected long trek of a herd of wild elephants in Yunnan province in Southwest China is unlikely to have been triggered by sudden human activities or changes in the animals' habitat, an expert said.

The herd, which left the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve last year and started marching north, remains far from their usual habitat. A male elephant that left the group on Sunday is still roaming alone.

Migration is normal for elephants and it's instinctive in the animal, said Chen Fei, director of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration's Asian Elephant Research Center, which is based in Kunming, Yunnan's capital.

But it's abnormal for the herd to go that far north,he added.

"Our analysis shows that if they keep going further north, the conditions there are not suitable for them to live and inhabit," he noted.

He dismissed the concern that the herd's abnormal trek is caused by sudden changes in their habitat.

"I don't think it's because of something people suddenly do to them," he said.

Listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, Asian elephants are under first-class State protection in China.

Thanks to the country's conservation efforts, the population of wild Asian elephants has increased from 175 in the 1970s to about 300 currently.