Yunnan College tackling the elephant in the room

A college in Southwest China's Yunnan province has presented some new students with "elephant riding licenses" this fall as a promotion for wildlife protection.

The license, gifted by Yunnan Polytechnic College, has the driver's information on the left page and the elephant's information at the right. Each elephant has its own local name, such as "Shaobaogu", "Shaoerkuai" and "Xiaoyangyu", most of which are also names of food.

The license also has descriptions of "offenses" that lead to "points deductions", such as "drunk driving", "running red lights", "eating trees in the green belt" and "using a phone while riding".

The college says the move was inspired by the herd of elephants who wandered over 1,300 kilometers north before returning to their natural habitat in Mojiang county in Yunnan's Pu'er city.

Wild Asian elephants are national first-class protected animals and the university wants to take the opportunity to bring greater awareness towards conservation efforts. Students should never actually attempt to ride these elephants.

Netizens welcomed the interesting brainstorm, and many said they want their own animal license, too. "If so, we guys from Inner Mongolia need to have a horse riding license then," a netizen commented.

Web users from Sichuan province and Northeast China "boast" that they've already had ones featuring pandas and tigers.