Newsday - China's wandering elephant herd finally heads home - BBC Sounds

After an epic 17-month journey that's been followed by many around the world, China’s famous herd of wandering elephants appears to finally be heading home. The 14 Asian elephants - of various sizes and ages - have travelled around 500km in the last year and a half, but have now been guided across the Yuanjiang river in Yunnan... and a path was being made for them to return to the nature reserve they call home in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.

But will returning to where they used to live actually solve anything? We spoke to Doctor Joshua Plotnik - assistant professor of psychology at Hunter College in New York, who studies elephant behaviour and cognition.

"Elephants do move, they do go from one location to the next in search of food, but it's happening more and more because their habitat is shrinking. And especially when you live in a family group of elephants, you're trying to take care of the other members of your family, you're going to seek out high quality water and food elsewhere if you don't have that where you live now."