'No tusk shells in our elephants'

26 December 2017 09:30 am

Former Deputy Director of Customs Samantha Gunsaekara , a specialist in gems and wildlife trading said there are no tusk shells in the tusks of elephants in Sri Lanka.

He further said that the tusk shells springs up in an elephant which lives nearly hundred years and there may be tusk shells in one among thousands of elephants.

He said he could state with responsibility the racketeers are selling pearls taken from pearl oysters or glossed parts taken from the elephant tusks and selling them as tusk shells. There are some items made of crystal, cattle bones or some rocks, the racketeers are trying to sell them, saying they are made of elephant tusk shells. He said that he had done hundreds of postmortems on elephants and had never come across tusk shells in any elephant and requested the general public to reject these deceivers. (Vineetha M. Gamage )