Elephants: Pupils taught to cope with encounters
“I’m now greatly relieved,” he said with a smile.
Zhu Chao, the principal, said the school has taken a series of other measures to ensure students’ safety.
Apart from removing from the campus all of the palm trees and other plants that the elephants regard as food, teachers have also organized drills and given lectures to help the students know how to respond when encountering a wild elephant, he said.
Zhu Hui, a fourth-grader, said her earliest memory about elephants dated back to the time when she was 4 years old.
“Previously, I was scared of them. Now, I’m not afraid of them anymore,” she said.
The 11-year-old said she believes the wild elephants know it’s not right to hurt people. But if they do pose a risk to her, she knows what to do.
“I will go to the nearest building and climb to the third floor,” she said. “The elephants are so huge that we must keep a distance from them. But they’re sometimes adorable and interesting, such as while they are caring for and playing with baby elephants.”