【英文原声朗读】一路“象”北，大象不再席地而坐

Roaming elephants wreak havoc

①Many people from Yunnan province often claim to have seen wild animals, including elephants, roaming local streets, as the province is known as the nation's "kingdom of wildlife ".

②However, such claims have recently been verified beyond a doubt.

③Video footage taken on Thursday in the Eshan Yi autonomous county shows a herd of 15 wild Asian elephants roaming the streets in a downtown area at night after leaving their habitat in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in the south of Yunnan last year.

④The herd originally consisted of 17 elephants when it left the nature reserve, but two of the animals gained access to alcohol in a village and became inebriated, according to local officials. The pair was later reported to have returned to Pu'er, a city north of the Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture.

⑤As the elephants made their 400-kilometer journey from Xishuangbanna to Eshan, they were monitored by forestry police, firefighters and public security workers using drones and cameras. Alerts were also sent to local residents to avoid injuries.

⑥In urban areas, the roaming elephants attracted considerable attention from the media and locals. Photographs and video footage of the animals quickly went viral.

⑦As of Sunday morning, the 15 elephants were 50 km from Kunming's Jinning district and 100 km from the downtown area of the provincial capital.