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Seeking companionship, a male reaches his trunk across the divide to touch a female. Both, says Poole, look to be four years old.
Photos Show Sad Plight for African Elephants Lifted to China
Expert says young elephants recently brought to China from Zimbabwe are covered with wounds.
New, secretly obtained photos show that elephants snatched from the wild in Zimbabwe months ago and airlifted recently to China are malnourished, sunken-looking, and scarred by wounds.
“These calves look really horrible,” says Joyce Poole, co-founder of ElephantVoices, a Kenya-based research and advocacy organization. Poole reviewed the photos, which were sent exclusively to National Geographic.
“I have seen at least 23 elephants,” wrote Chunmei Hu, a project manager with Nature University, a Beijing-based environmental NGO.
Hu says she took the photos on Monday at the Qingyuan Chimelong quarantine facility, in Guandong Province. “Most of the elephants have been hurt.”
Last month, conservationists alerted National Geographic that Chinese crews were in Hwange National Park—where tens of elephants had been held since November 2014—readying
