CCTV footage at Xishuangbanna, S. China’s Yunnan Province shows a wild elephant crossing a China-Laos border checkpoint for an early morning stroll and then making its way back two hours later.

Two frontier guards gradually approach with torches and only to watch it walking away. A security alert was immediately sent to residents nearby.

No casualties has been found till now. 

"There’s not enough food in the primeval forests during the winter, and so wild elephants would go out foraging in nearby villages,” explained Li Zhifu, a soldier working at the checkpoint.

Xishuangbanna is home to Dai people. Renowned as a huge “natural zoo,” its tropical rainforests provide a habitat for many species of animals, such as the Asian elephants which are under the country’s top protection, hornbills, peacocks and black-crested gibbons.

(Complied by Shan Xin)