Is Wild Elephant Valley the source of Asian elephants in China?

Speaking of elephants in China, we have to mention a well-known name: Wild Elephant Valley. It is named after the large number of wild elephants in the area. Legend has it that there are two to three hundred of them. Before that, people who wanted to see wild Asian elephants with their own eyes had almost always visited the Wild Elephant Valley. In fact, scientific researchers initially estimated that the population of Asian elephants in the Xishuangbanna Mengnu Reserve ranges from 80 to 150, and found that a total of 46 Asian elephants have appeared in the Wild Elephant Valley area for several consecutive years.

China’s tourist attractions for visiting Asian elephants: Wild Elephant Valley

However, why do elephants frequently appear in the Wild Elephant Valley, a small area of ​​the Mengyang Reserve? It turns out that Asian elephants’ favorite food is bamboo, and there are large bamboo forests around the Wild Elephant Valley. In addition, like most herbivores, Asian elephants have salt-loving habits, and it is difficult for them to get enough from plants. They absorb the salt from the saline-alkali natural ponds (called "nitrate ponds" by local people) to meet their body needs. In order to develop tourism in the Wild Elephant Valley, since the 1990s, they have put salt in the forest. Salt, artificially attract wild elephants to come to search for salt.

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