A wild Asian elephant detected a 2.8 kilogram package of opium in a grassy area in Mengman, a town in southwest China, and alerted the border police with his “appeals.”

The incident occurred when the agents received a notice that four wild elephants were roaming a village in the area, located in the province of Yunnan, the state media Global Times reported on Tuesday.

Upon arriving at the scene, the police officers observed that one of the pachyderms had stopped and was sniffing carefully in a grassy area, from where he then took out a backpack with his trunk and threw it into the air, while making some noises.

The agents checked the contents of the backpack and found opium, an illegal substance extracted from the poppy and used to make heroin. The case is under police investigation.

The story has aroused great interest among Chinese netizens, with the topic gaining more than 200 million views as of Tuesday morning on the Chinese social network Weibo.

Users have praised the elephant for its delicate sense of smell and intelligence, and have called for it to be rewarded with more fruits like bananas.

Some have also called for more protection for Asian elephants, an endangered “smart” species considered a “good friend” to humanity.

In the Asian giant, not only the elephants and the trained dogs of the canine brigade perform tracking and drug detection tasks.

Last February, the city of Chongqing (southwest) announced that it had trained a group of squirrels to be able to detect drugs in spaces that are difficult to access, such as storage sheds or very high places.

The animals were trained to scratch at the surface where the drugs were hidden as a way of indicating to their handlers that they have smelled the presence of drugs.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security said a few months ago that the Asian country is the nation with the “strictest drug control system in the world” and with the largest number of prohibited substances. Large-scale drug trafficking is a crime punishable by death in China.