The media circus around China’s famous wandering elephants ignores the habitat loss driving the animals, say critics

Every day a small army of 14 drones, more than 100 trucks, and hundreds of people are trying to change the travel path of a group of 15 elephants that have caught the world’s attention.

It has been months since a herd of 15, originally 17, elephants left their home in the Mengyangzi Nature Reserve in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan province, trekking 500km north in search for a new habitat, and a week since they entered the outskirts of the provincial capital Kunming.