Chinese village builds barricades to fend off marauding wild elephants

Locals living in nature reserve were plagued by animals looking for food.

Villagers in southwest China who have been plagued for years by rampaging wild elephants looking for food have welcomed a scheme to build a barrier to protect them.

The pilot project to build an enclosure round Xiangyanqing in Yunnan province has been judged so successful that it will now be expanded to other villages in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, state television reported on Thursday.

Residents reported a dozen incidents in which elephants were kept out of the village in just over a month, Guo Xianming, director of the Asian elephants protection project in Xishuangbanna, told CCTV.

The reserve hosts most of the country’s wild Asian elephants, which number between 200 and 300, according to a study published by the country’s Institute of Zoology.

The village introduced the barriers recently to cope with attacks from the wild elephants which came looking for sugar cane and banana leaves and would eat their grain and destroy electric appliances in their houses, villager Feng Guanglin told the broadcaster.

The locals have also established a public liability insurance system which will cover losses caused by wild elephants with government funds.

They have also set up watch teams to observe the elephants and monitor the situation.

“We have found a good way to prevent people’s lives and property from being damaged by wild elephants,” Guo said.

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China’s elephant ‘canteen’ keeps villagers safe from peckish pachyderms

The facility spans about 66 hectares in a wildlife reserve in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, China National Radio reported.

To make it irresistible to the pachyderms, the area has been stripped of all non-native trees and shrubs and restocked with their favourite food plants. These include such delights as paper mulberry and Nepalese broom grass, the report said.

With such an abundant food supply, the elephants are not the only creatures attracted to the new area. Antelopes and boars have also been seen tucking in to the treats on offer.


Over the past decade, the wild elephant population in Yunnan has doubled to more than 300, according to forestry authorities. As a result there has been increased competition for food and the hungry animals have increasingly gone in search of sustenance in villages and even towns.

Between 1991 and 2016, more than 40 people in Yunnan were killed in elephant attacks, according to official statistics.

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