Episode 32 – Horowpothana National Park

The first elephant census in Sri Lanka

While there have been several regional studies about the number of wild elephants residing in Sri Lanka, there has never been an island-wide elephant census covering the whole island. Thus, it was decided to carry out such a census in August 2011. I began this survey shortly as I was appointed Director General of the Wildlife Department in 2011. As a result, everyone participated in the initial proposal to undertake an elephant census that covered every corner of Sri Lanka. One of my most cherished recollections is of the elephant census.

Elephants have lived in Sri Lanka since ancient times. Elephas maximus maximus, one of the three Asian elephant subspecies, is only found in Sri Lanka. The number of elephants live in Sri Lanka is always a guess. It is said that there were 15,000 – 10,000 elephants at each time, but this is not correct. Until now, the elephant census had been done only on a regional basis. In the past, elephants were spread all over Sri Lanka, but after the British rule, this distribution changed with the plantation economy. The elephants in the hilly region were killed by the British rulers, so that region became an area without elephants. There are currently eighteen elephants at the Adams peak site and two elephants around Sinharaja. All the remaining elephants are in the dry zone and the intermediate zone.

In solving the long-standing elephant-human conflict in Sri Lanka, facts such as how many elephants are there in Sri Lanka?  how are they spread? what is the female to male ratio? what is their population percentage? what the population density of elephants?  and whether there is a healthy elephant population? needed to be find out. Due to the war situation in the North and East, it was difficult to collect data about the number of elephants in those areas. Although the war ended in 2009, it was risky to go into the jungle due to problems such as landmines in those areas. By 2011, most of the mines had been cleared. Therefore, those areas were also able to be surveyed.

In planning the elephant census, our primary focus was on conducting the survey to cover the entire forested areas of Sri Lanka. Due to the facts that this is different from a normal population census and the number of officers working in the Department of Wildlife Conservation was limited, officers and civilians from other agencies had to be engaged from outside. It was challenging as they needed to spend at least two full days in the jungle. Also, one should have understanding and knowledge about the identification of elephants.

During the planning days of this survey, the total staff of the Wildlife Department was nearly one thousand. Only a part of them could be used for this task. Therefore, it was necessary to find a large group of officials from outside.

We invited groups such as voluntary organizations, rural organizations, armed forces, police and university students to join this. A large number of them expressed their willingness to provide support. In particular, voluntary organizations expressed their willingness to provide material support as well as labor contribution. Universities also showed great support. Experts such as  Dr. S. Vijaya Mohan, Prof. U.K.G.K. Padmalal, Prof. Charles Santhia Pillay, who have constantly researched elephants, volunteered for this purpose.

The initiative of the elephant survey was entrusted to Mr. N.R.B Dissanayake, who was a Deputy Director at that time. Mr. Chandana Suriya Bandara, Mr. Ranjan Marasinghe, Mr. Manjula Amararatne, Mr. W.N.K Pathiratne, Veterinary Surgeon Mr. Taraka Prasad, Mr. U.L Tawfik, Ms. Chandani Wilson and Mr.  P.M.U. from Dharmathilaka who were Deputy Directors at that time were entrusted with the responsibility at the provincial level. Also, providing necessary training to the armed forces and police officers, Civil Defense Officers, university and voluntary organization participants and Department officials was a tedious task. But we were able to do all those activities successfully.

As we expected, there was a long dry season in 2011. I was hoping to use a day with good moonlight for this purpose. This work was done according to the scientific method called Water hole counts method. The elephant will visit the drinking place at some point of the day within a day.  Then they can easily be included in the calculation. We selected 1553 such drinking spots. A set of field tools needed to stay in the jungle for three days was given to the officials and dry food, necessary communication facilities, flashlights etc. were also provided as needed.

We also gave extensive media publicity in this regard. But when the census was 2-3 days away, many of the voluntary organizations which were supporting the census announced that they would not participate, by expressing different opinions regarding the way the census was conducted.

If the census is stopped at this point, it will go back for years and the money spent will be wasted. In consultation with the senior officers of the department, we took immediate decisions and brought in more forces, police and university students. More interested persons were contacted and all of them were again given rapid training. All the forests, farmlands, semi-populated areas, etc., which belong to and do not belong to the Departments Wildlife and Forest Conservation were surveyed to cover all the areas. As planned, scheduled elephant census was conducted on 11th, 12th and 13th August 2011 from 1553 monitoring stations. Those who took part in the wild elephant census faced various kinds of difficulties not only from wild elephants as well as other animals. But task was completed without physical injury to anyone.

All information was analyzed at the National Wildlife and Training Center in Giritale. Ranjan Marasinghe, the then Deputy Director of the Department, and Dr. Vijayakone provided a lot of support for these analyses. The largest number of elephants recorded within a day was taken into consideration here. Here the repetitions are removed and the minimum number of elephant population is obtained. Finally, a complete data sheet was prepared. It was scientifically concluded that the minimum number of elephants in Sri Lanka was 5871, which means there are almost 6000. Of these, it was found that about 67.17% of the elephants were inside the wildlife reserves, about 29.78% were inside the reserves and about 3.03% were outside the reserves. Among these elephants, the ratio of male elephants to female elephants is 1:1.09, 3285 adult elephants, 1487 young elephants, 731 calves and 376 babies were found. Also, other data was taken regarding the number of tuskers. Accordingly, it was found that 5.3% of the males were young males, 7.7% of them and 8.4% of the cubs were tuskers.

According to these surveys, about 200 wild elephants were found live outside the reserves and closer to villages. These elephants frequently visit villages and damage property and crops. Even if they are moved to other places, they return to their original places. Also, the people in the places where the elephants were taken away were subjected to troubles. Therefore, the people of the regions do not like this. Therefore, it was proposed to establish four elephant conservation centers in Horovpothana closer to Anuradhapura, Maduruoya, Lunugamwehera and Wilpattu.

As a first step, it was planned to build the first elephant conservation centers for 40 elephants in an area of ​​1000 hectares at Horopathana National Park in Anuradhapura district. The Minister in charge at that time, the Secretary and the Department officials provided a lot of support in this regard and the elephant conservation center was able to be completed in 2015.