A male Asian elephant that strayed from its wild herd a month ago was returned to Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in southwestern China's Yunnan province on Wednesday afternoon.

It left Xishuangbanna last year with 16 other elephants and the herd headed north. Two of the elephants returned to the nature reserve early this year.

After traveling more than 500 kilometers, the male elephant left the herd on June 6. The other 14 are still roaming in Xinping county, according to the command office in charge of monitoring their movement.

The male elephant had stayed alone on the outskirts of Kunming, the provincial capital, and the neighboring city Yuxi for 32 days, and had been about 72 km from the herd.

Yunnan is the sole habitat of wild Asian elephants in China. Before the 1970s, the species was threatened due to a number of factors, including a surge in the human population, shrinking forest areas and illegal hunting. The number of elephants dropped significantly.

However, due to determined protection efforts in recent decades, the Asian elephant population in China has risen to 300 from 170 in the 1970s.