Sri Lanka records highest number of elephant deaths in 2019
A team of BBKSDA Riau and WWF with the help of trained elephants drive out wild elephants in Indragiri Hulu District, Riau. (ANTARA/HO-BBKSDA Riau). Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
COLOMBO, Jan 12, 2020, Xinhua. The highest number of elephant deaths in Sri Lanka’s history occurred in 2019, when 361 deaths were recorded, the local media quoted the Center for Environment and Nature Studies as saying, Xinhua reported.
Media reports said on Saturday, that over 100 people were killed in the human-elephant conflict in the same period.
Killing wild elephants is an offence punishable by death in Sri Lanka, but there have been regular reports of angry villagers poisoning or shooting dead marauding jumbos.
According to official records the current population of wild elephants in Sri Lanka is about 7,500.
The area where the elephant deaths occurred is part of the proposed “Elephant Corridor” in the Elephant Management Plan of the DWC, officials told The Sunday Observer in October 2019.
The Elephant Corridor ranges from Kalawewa to Habarana in North Central Sri Lanka.
Villagers use electric fences to contain intruding elephants, and according to DWC Director General M.G.C. Sooriyabandara, they might also be poisoning the elephants.
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