I have a wildlife zoo-Chapter 458: Crossing the Sea by Ferry

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Fang Ye and his team got off the plane at 9 a.m. and it was almost 10 a.m. by the time they arrived at the rescue center.

Getting the elephant into a cage, hoisting it onto the truck a few times, securing the transport cage and loading the food took close to four hours in total.

That’s what behavioral training is for!

They started training two months in advance, getting the elephant familiar with the process of entering the transport cage. Today, when it was time for the real transport, the elephant walked into the cage on its own and cooperated with the animal keepers, saving a lot of trouble.

To cross the sea, they had to take a ferry across the Qiongzhou Strait, where only the driver was allowed to wait in the vehicle; everyone else had to check in and board from the passenger terminal.

Fang Ye and his colleagues lined up to enter the passenger cabin through the people’s passage, while on the other side was the vehicles’ entry, with trucks and cars slowly driving in.

There was a mother in front leading her child by the hand.

As the child walked along, he gazed out curiously through the railings and upon seeing the truck carrying the elephant, his eyes widened in amazement, tugging hard at his mother’s hand, "Mom! Look, an elephant!"

"There are no elephants here, come on, let’s go..."

The child insisted, "It is an elephant! Stop pulling me, I want to see the elephant!"

The mother relented, "Oh dear, if you want to see an elephant, I’ll take you to the zoo one day!"

The child was reluctantly dragged along by his mother, his eyes lingering on the truck carrying the elephant as it entered the ship’s hold.

Fang Ye and the animal keepers smiled silently behind them.

On the ferry, tourists enjoyed the moist sea breeze on the upper deck, admiring the sea view outside and taking photos with their phones!

Little did they know, just one deck below them, was another special passenger.

Pingping, after experiencing the initial panic of being caged and hoisted up, had calmed down quite a bit and was now settled quietly in the cage.

After getting on board, the huge head also turned around, curiously taking in the sea view outside.

Fang Ye spent some time on the deck looking at the sea before he went back.

To be honest, it wasn’t as beautiful as he imagined!

The afternoon sun was the fiercest, shining on the undulating sea surface, the golden light flickering and making it hard to keep one’s eyes open if stared at for too long.

Soon, the ferry had crossed the sea.

Fang Ye and his team were sitting in a minivan, following the truck carrying Pingping, heading straight for Linhai.

At each rest stop along the way, they attracted crowds of onlookers.

"Wow, what’s this, an elephant?"

"Geez, it looks much more impressive than the ones on TV!"

Some quick thinkers even whipped out their phones right there and then, recording a video, planning to upload it to TikTok or Kuaishou later.

An elephant transport was not a common sight!

Brother Zhong was feeding Pingping fruits and hay, and during rest times, Fang Ye also came to check on Pingping’s condition.

Climbing onto the truck, he called out cheerfully, "Pingping!"

Pingping’s big head turned to look at him!

Fang Ye handed over a piece of apple: "Here, have an apple."

As she took the apple, she casually stroked its nose.

Brother Zhong smiled and said, "Everyone loves elephants, and few can resist the chance to touch them."

Fang Ye sensed a story in his words and asked out of curiosity, "Could you tell me about it?"

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Brother Zhong pondered for a moment and said, "As a child, I saw a photography collection called ’My Wild Animal Friends,’ which featured a little girl named Tippi who closely interacted with leopards, elephants, ostriches, and various wild animals. It truly shocked me and made me feel that this was the best connection between humans and animals.

Later, I realized the naivety of that idea. Elephants are considered gentle giants by the public, yet all around the world, every day there are incidents of elephants killing and injuring people, and severe conflicts between humans and elephants."

Fang Ye nodded: "Indeed!"

Those who love animals all yearn for a close and friendly relationship with wildlife.

However, wild animals are not domestic pets, and reality is cruel; the relationship between humans and animals is not as beautiful as it seems.

Cases like his, where one is affectionate with lions and tigers, are exceptions, not the norm.

And that only happens in zoos. In the wild, the best way to get along is not to interfere at all.

"Because I like elephants and study them, I volunteered at the elephant camp for a while, though the volunteer program was just a money-making scheme for the camp. There I met a girl who also volunteered because she loved elephants. She even took part in a mahout training course.

The elephant in the camp was named Potato. Potato was a very dangerous elephant; it had flapped its trunk at the camp leader, at staff members including me, and once threw a mahout off, breaking his leg and putting him out of action for four months. It also trampled and kicked two other mahouts.

Although I told her about Potato’s dangerousness, she stopped talking to me after I first introduced them. She preferred to believe what the camp leader said, that elephants like to be stroked and hugged."

The girl ignored protective measures, liked getting close to Potato, and every time Potato pushed her, she thought it was playing with her and would laugh happily.

A few times when she wanted to help Potato break elephant grass or feed it water, Potato would rudely snatch the food from her hand, nearly pulling her down, and sometimes when it wanted food, it almost hit her with its trunk. Her smiles would then vanish, leaving her with a puzzled expression.

She believed that if humans loved animals, the animals could feel it and would love humans back and not hurt them.

But in reality, elephants don’t need human help at all. The reason an elephant wouldn’t hurt her was simple: she did not hinder it from getting food, and it was afraid of being beaten.

Based on my estimates at the elephant camp, less than 1% of people would acknowledge the safety concerns involving elephants, despite a significant number of captive elephants carrying tuberculosis, which is transmissible between them and humans. To this day, I haven’t met anyone who could touch an elephant and didn’t want to."

Fang Ye exclaimed, "Elephants really are captivating animals. Such huge creatures with legs thicker than a human, who wouldn’t want to touch one?"

Brother Zhong had quite a rich experience; he only came to the rescue center last year.

From his words, one could feel his genuine love for elephants.

Fang Ye chatted with him, listening to stories about his encounters with elephants, while feeding Pingping.

After a rest and resupply, the journey continued.

Finally, at 8 AM on the 18th, they arrived at the zoo.

The zoo’s official WeChat account had announced the arrival of the elephant in advance, and at the moment, some media reporters and quite a few tourists were waiting at the zoo entrance. Seeing the truck coming, they perked up: "Here it comes, here it comes!"

The reporters snapped photos "click-click," and some tourists bought fresh flowers, waving them in their hands with beaming smiles, looking thrilled about the elephant’s arrival: "Welcome, welcome! Welcome to Linhai Zoo!"

Some curious visitors asked, "Hey, why does it look a bit red? Aren’t elephants supposed to be gray?"

"...I don’t know, maybe it’s from the sun?"