Save Sri Lanka’s majestic elephants

As practising Buddhists and animal lovers, both my wife and I believe all living beings are entitled to share our planet in harmony as they too feel pain like us and need protection from natural and more importantly, man-made disasters! It is in this context, I wish to highlight these tragedies becoming all too common through your esteemed journal. If I succeed in terms of creating greater public awareness which hopefully, make an impetus to drive forward things to make it happen, I will be a a happy man! Turning a blind eye is not an option knowing full well our elephant population is on the decline! Can we afford it? Certainly not! Our Buddhist monks can easily be right at the fore front rather than keeping elephants tethered to trees in temple precincts just for prestige values!

While recognising the sad truth about human elephant confrontations leading to death and destruction for both, there must be practical solutions to end it together with herds including young calves being killed by trains!

There should be mandatory slow speed limits to enable train drivers to stop when these magnificent creatures are trying to cross ! Here in Wales, UK we have 20 and 30 MPH speed limits monitored by cameras to ensure health and safety of the public! Why not adopt the same system for our national heritage? Impose hefty fines for law breakers!

The Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus) is native to Sri Lanka and one of three recognised subspecies of the Asian elephant. It is the type subspecies of the Asian elephant and was first described by carl Linnaeus under the binomial Elephas maximusin 1758. The Sri Lankan elephant population is now largely restricted to the dry zone in the north, east and southeast of Sri Lanka.

Elephants are present in famous Yala, Willpattu National Park and Minneriya National Park amongst others but also live outside protected areas. It is estimated that Sri Lanka has the highest density of elephants in Asia. Human-elephant conflict is increasing due to conversion of elephant habitat to human settlements and permanent cultivation. Elephants are classified as mega herbivores and consume up to 150 kg (330 lb) of plant matter per day. As generalists they feed on a wide variety of food plants.

In Sri Lanka’s northwestern region, feeding behaviour of elephants was observed during the period of January 1998 to December 1999. The elephants fed on a total of 116 plant species belonging to 35 families including 27 species of cultivated plants. More than half of the plants were non-tree species, i.e. shrub, herb, grass, or climbers. More than 25% of the plant species belonged to the family Leguminosae and 19% of the plant species belonged to the family of true grasses. The presence of cultivated plants in dung does not result solely due to raiding of crops as it was observed that elephants feed on leftover crop plants in fallow chenas. Juvenile elephants tend to feed predominantly on grass species. Food resources are abundant in regenerating forests but at low density in mature forests. Traditional slash-and-burn agriculture. creates optimum habitat for elephants through promoting successional vegetation.

Females and calves generally form small, loosely associated social groups without the hierarchical tier structure exhibited by African bush elephants. However, at some locations such as Minneriya National Park hundreds of individuals aggregate during the dry season, suggesting that grouping behaviour is flexible and depends on season and place. Please campaign hard and tirelessly to achieve our noble goal!

Sunil Dharmabandhu

Wales, UK