Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, southwest China - June 19, 2021 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Village, mountains
2. Aerial shots of elephant in forest
3. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Monitoring team member (name not given) (with reporter asking questions/starting with shot 2/partially overlaid with shots 4-5/ending with shot 6):
(Reporter: How long have you been monitoring this elephant herd?)
"We've monitored them for 10 days."
(Reporter: How have they been behaving?)
"They look pretty docile."
(Reporter: Have they visited local farmers' houses and made trouble?)
"No."
(Reporter: Do you have a standard for monitoring, for example, what's the distance that triggers the alarm? How far from the villages to the elephants need to be for the villagers to be evacuated?)
"About 400 to 500 meters."
(Reporter: Is the current one kilometer a safe distance?)
"Yes. It's still a safe distance."
(Reporter: During the past days, have the elephants always been foraging in the mountains or have they come down sometimes?)
"They always forage in the mountains."
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
4. Village, mountain
5. Aerial shot of elephant in forest
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
6. Aerial shot of elephant in forest
7. Mountain, village

Monitoring teams have been working around the clock to track the movements of wild Asian elephants in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

One herd of Asian elephants, migrating from their forest home in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, has attracted global attention, with millions of people tuning in online to follow their adventure.

Although the elephants originating from Xishuangbanna may be the most famous animals in China right now, they are by no means the old herd of Asian elephants in the province. For the safety of all elephants and residents living in the region, local authorities have been using drones and infrared cameras to monitor the elephants 24 hours a day.

One team has been tracking a herd of 22 elephants for 10 days. So far, the herd has been very docile and hasn't caused any trouble for local villagers, said one of the team's members.

When the elephants reach about 400 to 500 meters outside a village, the team will alert and evacuate local residents. Currently, the elephant herd he is tracking is over one kilometer away from a village, where they've been foraging in the mountains.

Local authorities have launched a mobile application called Xishuangbanna Asian Elephant Monitoring Platform, which the team uses to issue warnings and other information about the elephants.

The mobile app has a map showing the location of local elephant herds. Other relevant information such as the names of villages that may be impacted is available on the platform as well. Users can also opt-in to receive alerts.

Asian elephants are under top-class state protection in China, where they are mostly found in Yunnan. Thanks to enhanced protection efforts, the wild elephant population in the province has grown to about 300 from 193 in the 1980s.