Rob Fox
Editors Note: This post was updated on March 23, 2020, after the National Geographic announced the photo stating Elephants broke into a Chinese village and got drunk on wine was a hoax.
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The National Geographic has officially announced that unfortunately, there have been no Elephants found drunk. The story, which was too good to be true, is, in fact, a hoax. Initially, Twitter was going around saying a group of elephants had rummaged through a village in Yunnan, China, and got drunk off corn wine, passing out in a tea garden. It quickly went viral on social media and Tik Tok, but we now know it wasn’t true. But, it was so good, that even we fell for it!
Apparently, no one has figured out where the drunken elephant photo first came to life, but a Chinese news report did debunk the viral post. They stated, “While elephants did recently come through a village in Yunnan Province, China, their presence isn’t out of the norm, they aren’t the elephants in the viral photos, and they didn’t get drunk and pass out in a tea field.”
Well, I guess this just goes to show us how quickly “too-good-to-be-true” rumors can spark in a terrifying time of crisis. Check your sources, people!
The original story published on March 19, 2020, is below.
Pollution has gone down. The canals in Venice are clearing up. Elephants are getting wasted. Human beings may be locked down but the rest of planet Earth is having a good time, it would seem.
Such is the case with the aforementioned herd of hammered drunk elephants, who went buck wild in a town in the Yunan province of China while all the townsfolk were locked up indoors to avoid catching a hot sneeze full of Coronavirus.
https://twitter.com/ParveenKaswan/status/1240173922424741889?s=20
It turns out this was not just a happy accident for the elephants. As conservationist Parveen Kaswan notes in his tweets, elephants love booze. They love it so much that they actively seek it out. And mark houses where they previously found booze. Elephants may, in fact, have a problem.
They even get angry when they see drunk people because that means there was booze to be had and it wasn’t shared with them.
No one teach elephants about cocaine, you guys.
A couple thoughts.
1. I can’t decide if your town being overrun by drunk elephants would be terrifying or hilarious. Probably a little of column A and a little bit of column B. If you’re lucky they just drunkenly sing their elephant songs, stumble around a bit, and then pass out.
If you’re unlucky the walls of your house get caved in by a couple of dead-eyed drunk, 3-ton monsters in the midst of an aggressive, public orgy.
The next time your town is beset by blackout drunk elephants just order a bunch of pizza and chalupas and place them just outside the village. The elephants will be gone in no time.
- I have added, “Get drunk with an elephant” to my bucket list. More specifically, to the top of my bucket list. I will not die before I get drunk with an elephant. I may very well die while getting drunk with an elephant, but not before!
