I have a wildlife zoo

However, he knew that Pingping did not want to shake hands with him; their relationship wasn't there yet. Pingping extended its trunk because it was asking for food.

He grabbed a piece of apple from nearby and offered it to the tip of Pingping's trunk.

Pingping pinched the apple with the tip of its trunk, retracted its trunk from between the bars, opened its mouth to place the apple inside, and then stretched its trunk out again.

After eating several pieces of apple, it seemed much happier, its eyes even squinted with joy.

"Wow, this elephant eats apples just like people eat dates!"

"These few apples seem not even enough to get stuck in its teeth; it hardly has to chew."

"It really can eat."

As Fang Ye fed it, he said, "Our zoo's main feed for elephants consists of forage, carrots, and apples, and in spring, also Chinese cabbages. With an ample supply of food, an elephant can eat about one to two hundred kilograms of food a day.

However, their digestion efficiency is quite low. They can't ruminate and only absorb about 40%, while the remaining 60% is excreted without being digested. They eat a lot and defecate a lot; the daily amount of their feces is truly astonishing."

After feeding it for a while, he brought over a bucket of water—it was the kind commonly used at home for wringing mops.

Pingping stretched its trunk into the bucket, sucking with all its might, and one could see the water level in the bucket visibly decreasing.

After it finished sucking water, it curled its trunk, brought it back to its mouth, tilted its head back with half-closed eyes, and began gulping down the water, with droplets falling continuously from the sides of its mouth to the ground.

It was like a Russian drinking vodka, gulp gulp gulp gulp gulp!

Fang Ye picked up the bucket to show the online viewers; the bucket that had been full of water just moments ago was now reduced to barely a bottom layer.

An elephant's grandeur is not only reflected in its massive size; even the most basic acts of eating and drinking are incredibly impressive.

The viewers were flabbergasted: "Damn, it drinks water too fast!"

"Did it just suck that entire bucket dry with one trunkful?"

"Mom's asking me why I'm kneeling down to watch the livestream!"

"The elephant's trunk is like a straw; it's so interesting to watch it drink."

"I always thought elephants drank water with their trunks directly into their stomach. I couldn't have been more wrong."

"Same here... I've had it wrong for so many years; just bury me, brothers."

"I never even considered this question. /laugh cry"

"I remember mimicking elephants by trying to drink water with my 'trunk' as a child, thinking I was so cool... and then I ended up choking badly."

"Haha, you're really awesome!"

Fang Ye laughed and said, "An elephant's trunk is indeed incredible! The human body has a total of 639 muscles, but an elephant's trunk alone has over 40,000, which helps them perform many complex tasks.

Just speaking of drinking, they can suck up 7-12 liters of water at once, and their sucking speed can reach 3.7 liters per second, equivalent to 20 toilets flushing simultaneously.

The trunk's functionality is complex and requires a long learning process to master. For instance, young elephants can't use their trunks proficiently and have to kneel beside streams to drink."

As he spoke, Pingping curled its trunk around a stick about 2 or 3 centimeters thick and over a meter long, which was provided for its enrichment and amusement.

Grasping the stick firmly in front of its trunk, it began to repeatedly scratch around its eyes.

While scratching its face, its facial muscles twitched, and its eyes occasionally squinted shut, looking quite content.

After tending to its face, it scraped its ears with a branch, scratched the top of its head, and then rubbed its lower belly.

The movements were very skilled, just like how humans scratch an itch!

In the wild, elephants would use branches to scratch themselves in this way.

"Wow, this trunk is so nimble and obeys like an arm! It's incredibly flexible."

"I'm a bit worried. That branch looks rather sharp. What if it injures itself?"

"You're underestimating how tough an elephant's skin is. Anesthesia needles have a hard time penetrating it, let alone a small branch. Besides, it knows how much force to use."

Fang Ye watched as it scratched itself and said to the netizens, "The elephant just had its preventive vaccinations the other day, including deworming medication to get rid of parasites, so it can't be taken outside for activities just yet. Let's go see the new green peafowl instead. The green peafowl have been quarantined and are now in the bird aviary."

The animals sent by the system have all been quarantined and come with relevant certificates.

Along the way, an online question came in, "Director, are there really no green peafowls in domestic zoos?"

Fang Ye sighed, "Speaking of that, it's a period of shame for domestic zoos.

One of the important roles of zoos is supposed to be conservation breeding, but at that time, zoos were quite disorganized, and their awareness for protection wasn't in place.

After importing the blue peafowl, they mixed the green peafowl—which are as rare as phoenixes—with blue peafowls that could be served as dinner and are as common as domestic chickens, contaminating the precious genetics of the green peafowl. Purebred green peafowl became increasingly scarce.

Now, the green peafowl in domestic zoos are completely wiped out, leaving only a bunch of mixed-breeds."

"That's tragic."

"It makes me so mad I could smoke."

They arrived at the tropical bird aviary.

Peafowls prefer a tropical monsoon forest environment, similar to open woodlands.

In the densely wooded area in the middle of the aviary, they didn't enjoy staying much; originally, blue peafowls liked to bask in the sun in the middle of the walkways, and they'd gotten used to the comings and goings of tourists, remaining indifferent.

Now that the green peafowls have arrived, to prevent cross-breeding, several blue peafowls have moved back out to the Peafowl Lawn.

Generally speaking, blue and green peafowls do not mate with each other, as the differences between the two species are clear and their aesthetics are not the same. With so many parrots together, they also choose mates of their own species.

In an effort to build the reputation of 'The Land of Peafowls' to increase tourism income, many parks in Yunnan imported large numbers of blue peafowls. The first time the blue peafowls flew towards the habitats of the green peafowls, they were unwelcome, got pecked fiercely, some with feathers plucked out, and some even blinded, a very pitiful situation before they fled back.@@novelbin@@

In another open area at the center of the aviary, under a huge tetrameles nudiflora and alongside rivers and ponds, several green peafowls, unaccustomed to tourist activity, stayed there, hiding behind trees at any disturbance.

Fang Ye turned his head from left to right, his eyes suddenly brightening, "There, do you see the green peafowl?"

Following his pointing, Lan Li also moved the camera over.

The netizens were instantly stunned!

A green peafowl was on the grassland, striding with long legs, body low to the ground, stepping forward in small steps, its head bobbing.

The slender green neck and the blue wings, with a tail not too long, indicating it was a female peafowl.

Stepping into a place bathed in sunshine, its green neck shone with a golden green under the brilliant sunlight.

The wings had the color of a beautiful sea, with the green pierced by a hint of deep blue, like splendid gems, and even the tail was a bright yellow, as if light was somehow flowing through it.

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It was breathtakingly beautiful!