A herd of elephants lived in a nature reserve in China. One day they got tired of everything – and the animals got out by chance. They left their cozy enclosures and headed straight for the cities. The journey took a long time, and the Chinese authorities were searching for the runaways.

Eventually, their long journey came to an end. They had traveled a great distance, looking at the provinces of China, until one day they stopped and were spotted by the plane.
The animals made a halt and lay down in the shape of a pyramid, visually depicting the hierarchy in the herd. That’s how the 15 elephants from the reserve were found. They had walked almost 500 km since they escaped in April. Only recently have they been found. Although people found traces of their presence everywhere.

The animals were on their way to northern China, clearly tired after a long journey, on their way they extracted food from farmland, smashed up barns and scared the locals.
The total damage from their walk was about 6.8 million yuan ($1.1 million). They caused serious damage to agriculture, but no one could stop them. The fact is that elephants in China are a protected species: they cannot be harmed, the rescuers who tried to catch the animals did not even use tranquilizers.
The plan to catch the animals was simple: using trucks, people blocked the roads and guided the animals back to the reserve, and scattered food along the way: 18 tons of pineapples and corn.