Chapter 218: Chapter 218 Why is Your Nose So Long
Chen Ying had just arrived when she perceived the sadness and pain emanating from the little elephant.
The anguish of being abandoned, coupled with the tornt of its wounds infected and inflad, brought the little elephant close to losing control.
Chen Ying pushed Feng Xin aside and casually picked up the bucket filled with fruit nearby, slowly approaching the little elephant amid the astonished cries of the onlookers.
“Baby, be good, Baby, I’ve got so tasty fruit for you. After eating, once your wounds are healed, I’ll accompany you to find your mom, okay?”
Once again, Chen Ying’s affinity with the animals astonished the bystanders.
The little elephant seed to sense the gentle aura, reminiscent of a mother and grandmother.
It weakly lifted its trunk, attempting to touch Chen Ying.
Chen Ying extended her hand, moving closer to it, allowing it to familiarize itself with her scent, then caressed its forehead.
She took out a banana and placed it in its mouth. The little elephant paused, then slowly began to eat.
After finishing a bucket of fruit, the little elephant had completely cald down.
Chen Ying took the opportunity to examine its trunk and forehead. The injuries were mainly abrasions and bruises.
While soothing the little elephant, she motioned for the center’s veterinarian to check the little elephant’s physical injuries.
The little elephant shrank back slightly in fear, and Chen Ying quickly touched faces with it, caressing the animal.
“It’s okay, don’t be afraid. We need to clean your wounds before applying dicine. Hold on, Big Baby.”
It took two veterinarians and two Elephant Dads a full forty minutes to clean the wounds properly.
External injuries could be directly irrigated and dicated, but internal injuries were not visible to the naked eye.
Chen Ying had theoretical knowledge but lacked hands-on experience, so it was a learn-on-the-job situation.
For Asian Elephants, routine examinations typically include blood tests, fecal tests, and physical asurents.
Regularly, the elephants’ height, weight, and girth need to be asured as well.
The elephant doctor at the protection center, Teacher Bao, had even modified human heart rate monitors to asure the heart rates of elephants.
Teacher Bao was out today, traveling to another reserve to consult on a rescued elephant.
After receiving the call from this center, he was probably on his way back now.
The hardest part about rescuing elephants was establishing trust with them and providing tily dical care.
Previously, most rescue failures were due to obstacles at this step.
By the ti trust was established and close examination and treatnt beca possible, the injuries and diseases had reached a point of no return.
Chen Ying’s presence greatly shortened the ti required for this step, winning ample ti for the treatnt process.
Blood collection for the elephants was done behind the ears.
Dosticated elephants needed to be cald in advance, while touching the ears of wild elephants was almost impossible.
Seeing the young doctor with the blood collection tubes, Chen Ying didn’t even think twice before taking them, lifting the little elephant’s ear herself. She needed no assistance and quickly collected the required five milliliters of blood for testing.
Honestly, since getting involved in rescue work, they had never found the process as easy as it was today.
Once blood collection was complete, with no other tests pending, Chen Ying opened the cage door, took hold of the trunk, and led the little elephant to step on the scale to be weighed.
Just as they were weighing it, the little elephant urinated a torrent, startling itself. It started to trot, coiling its trunk around Chen Ying’s arm, as if trying to escape with its two-legged beast.
Everyone was stunned for a mont before bursting into laughter.
The veterinarians hastily collected fecal samples for testing, while Chen Ying worked hard to soothe the frightened little elephant.
“Brother Ying, co on, give it this.”
Feng Xin and his friends brought over a basket of fruit. They took a piece of peeled pineapple, stuffed dicine inside it, and gestured for Chen Ying to feed it to the elephant.
Chen Ying took it, glanced at it, and offered it to the elephant’s trunk, which curled and stuffed it into its mouth.
As it ate, it fluttered its ears and stamped its feet a couple of tis, like a little girl.
Chen Ying led the little elephant around for a short walk, and after observation, the two veterinarians decided to let it rest in the quarantine isolation area until Teacher Bao returned to arrange the next treatnt plan.
The quarantine isolation area wasn’t very large and the facilities were quite simple, mainly providing space for the elephants to rest and eat.
Unlike other animals’ sheds, the elephant shed hardly contained any enriching play facilities.
“Here, we mainly guide the elephants to enter the forest area behind to forage on their own. Elephants, compared to other animals, don’t have many requirents for toys. They mainly like playing with water and eating, so in the activity area, we’ve built several shallow water pits for them to play in.”
Each rescued elephant here had its own dedicated Elephant Dad, the human beings they trusted and were closest to.
The one responsible for this little elephant was an uncle who had been engaging in elephant protection and breeding work for more than twenty years.
The uncle was originally a local villager; the first elephant the center rescued was found in his farm field.
“That elephant eventually died anyway,” the uncle said, his eyes still glistening with tears as he spoke about the first elephant they rescued. “After over three months of treatnt, we all thought it would recover, but one day, it suddenly couldn’t stand up, then it stopped eating, its skin slowly ulcerated, and it died in great pain.”
“Since then, I’ve stayed here to take care of the elephants. In the blink of an eye, I went from a young man to an old uncle.”
The uncle’s skin was dark, and his teeth were not exactly white.
He said he used to like smoking, but after realizing that the elephants didn’t like the sll of tobacco on him, he quit.
The Elephant Dads can effortlessly recall each elephant’s favorite food, their preferred ti for playing in the water, how much weight they gained in a month.
After the dicated baby elephant fell asleep, Chen Ying also went to visit the elephant nursery.
He happened to et a young man feeding a baby elephant milk, its eager gulping like that of the voraciously eating cub of the Clouded Leopard, Leo.
In terms of cuteness, the baby elephants certainly couldn’t compete with the Big Cats, but they had their unique charm. At least in the eyes and hearts of the Elephant Dads, these little ones were absolutely the most beautiful in the world.
After finishing its milk, the excited baby elephant swung its little trunk and bounced around, following behind its Elephant Dad and even reached out its trunk to suckle his clothes.
The young man taking care of it looked back at Chen Ying, smiled shyly, and approached with the baby elephant to greet him.
The little one curiously stared at Chen Ying for a while, took a step back, then moved forward two steps, touching his fingers with its trunk and started happily bouncing around again.
At night, since they couldn’t take the baby elephants to the forest, the Elephant Dad holding its ear led it to the edge of the courtyard in the Elephant Garden, providing it with a hose to play in the water.
（I love bathing my skin feels so good oh oh oh~~）
There, they had built a pool about thirty centiters deep, with a slope for easy entry and exit for the baby elephants.
The baby elephants adored this place, insisting on playing in the water every day before they would rest properly.
Leaving the Elephant Garden, Chen Ying returned to the Animal Shed where the Clouded Leopard was housed. A stronger female Clouded Leopard had her own room and, once the quarantine period was over without issues, she could be released directly.
Another female Clouded Leopard that had been affectionate with a brother-complex Clouded Leopard might have to stay a bit longer. They needed to confirm whether she was pregnant before they could arrange her release schedule.
Moreover, the release site would be closer to the center, to facilitate their tracking of the female Clouded Leopard’s movents.
If she truly was pregnant, they had to monitor her labor. If all went well, that would be great, but if there were complications, they would still need to intervene.
Apart from Clouded Leopards, the rescue center was also ho to an aging, injured Indochinese Tiger.
This Elder Tiger wasn’t even from our country, but had fled across the border from the neighboring country, falling ill as soon as it arrived, and was rescued by local villagers who notified the conservation rescue center here.
When the Indochinese Tiger first arrived, its condition was critical. The center convened dostic experts in tiger studies overnight for a consultation and also contacted related experts from the neighboring country. Together, they worked hard to keep Elder Tiger alive.
The experts said that the old tiger was very old, equivalent to a human in his nineties, and would not survive long if released back into the forest. It was better to let it enjoy the last of its tiger life at the center.
Chen Ying went to see Elder Tiger, but the old fellow didn’t even lift his eyelids, completely ignoring him.
The Keeper for Elder Tiger said that these days, its appetite was not good, and its energy was low, the amount of activity less than a third of what it used to be.
Everyone was afraid that Elder Tiger would just pass away; they dared not leave him alone. When the old man slept, they would pull up a stool to sit beside him.
Chen Ying had originally planned to check Elder Tiger’s health, but after hearing the Keeper’s words, he felt that maybe things were good as they were.
That evening, after sharing a wonderful al with friends from the center, Chen Ying quickly dove into his work.
The injuries on the two Clouded Leopards were no longer serious, now the most important thing was observation, allowing them to gradually adapt to more extensive activity.
Several days later, the exam results for the two female Clouded Leopards ca out, and comparing them, it seed likely that the skinnier one was indeed pregnant.
Originally, when it was only a suspicion, everyone agreed that it should be released to give birth and live in the wild with the offspring in its belly.
But now that it was confird, so were worried whether its hunting ability, just recovered, would be sufficient to ensure the nutrition for both herself and her offspring.
Their concern was not without reason. Clouded Leopards were already scarce – if the female and her offspring experienced problems due to this, they would not be able to live with themselves.
But if they didn’t let the Clouded Leopard return to the wild, it would be equivalent to captive breeding the offspring, which would significantly increase the difficulty of releasing them in the future.
Chen Ying wisely refrained from joining their debate. He wasn’t one of them; the more he said, the more mistakes he could make.
But to his surprise, both Dao ihua and Senior Bai approached him.
“I an, you study birds, so why get involved with this? Have you seen so many birds that you’ve decided you want the Clouded Leopard to thin out the flock for you?”
Senior Bai glared at him. “I’m asking for soone else. They want to know if there would be any danger in letting the female Clouded Leopard go.”
Chen Ying ruffled his hair in irritation, glanced at Miss Dao with a frown on her face, and asked, “So what do you two think, to release or not to release?”
Miss Dao pursed her lips, not making a sound, while Senior Bai spread her hands decisively.
“If it were birds, I’d say release without hesitation. But with mammals, I’m not so sure. Theoretically, releasing now is definitely better than later. The problem is, no one can guarantee the Clouded Leopard, once released back to the forest, will have the hunting capability to support giving birth to and raising its young.”
“It’s not like I’m the one giving birth; how would I know?” Chen Ying scoffed. “Forget it, I understand what your leaders are thinking; they just don’t want to shoulder the responsibility. Actually, the problem is easy to solve – just let the dad Leopard take care of protecting the mother and cub.”
Dao ihua suddenly looked up, “Are you agreeing to bring the male Clouded Leopard over here?”
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