Another brutal elephant death highlights humanity’s wickedness

Another heartbreaking elephant death was reported from Seeppukulama, Mihintale on Tuesday December 16. Villagers have attempted to chase this elephant that had suffered a previous injury in one leg and was blind in one eye by throwing burning torches at it. The elephant is suspected to have succumbed to burn injuries. 

While the Wildlife Conservation Department is trying to identify the perpetrator(s). There’s  a video being circulated on social media, and animal welfare groups are calling upon the government to expedite it’s actions against such criminals. Harming wild elephants is a grave and punishable offence under Sri Lanka’s Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance (FFPO). The law prohibits injuring or killing elephants, which are a nationally protected species. 

But despite such legal protection, Sri Lanka continues to see a spike in the number of elephant deaths as a result of the human elephant conflict. For 2025 alone, over 300 elephants have succumbed to injuries mainly due to this conflict. However, the deeper issues pertaining to this conflict stem from a lack of political will, lack of funding and resources for wildlife officials, irregularities in monitoring rural level projects such as elephant fences, and lack of coordination among departments amidst other challenges. 

The disaster that struck the island nation is a stark reminder of why people need to be mindful about our natural resources. Wildlife photographers who frequent Kala Wewa narrate stories of how they miss iconic tuskers such as Barana. In fact Kala Wewa was the home base for many such magnificent tuskers who unfortunately lost their lives to the aggravating HEC. During the Cyclone, Kala Wewa overflowed like never before, inundating its surrounds and affecting many people. Similarly, many other major rivers reached maximum spill capacities and people have never experienced or remember such a calamity in their living memory. 

The incumbent government’s attitude towards wildlife conservation has not been positive, as far as animal welfare groups are concerned. Earlier this year, many animal lovers and rights activists joined a protest at the Galle Face Green calling upon the government to take action against the rising number of elephant deaths. Members of the clergy referred to it as an ‘elephant carnage.’ 

One shortsighted decision taken by the government was to conduct elephant drives to manage elephant populations. But environmentalists pointed out that it is not a scientific method of controlling populations. They explained what happens when she-elephants are usually translocated during elephant drives, leaving male elephants who raid crops and property in the village. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to translocate only females.

The HEC aggravated over the years largely due to encroachment. With population density on the rise, people look for spaces to put up houses and commercial establishments. This was evident during the landslides that occurred in many parts of the country. The landslide at Lower Kadugannawa a few days prior to the cyclone indicated the severity of the issue. For many people, a forest patch is usually a bare land and they feel it’s alright to clear the land and put up a house. They may not be aware of ecosystem services carried out by a forest or its individual species. People don’t bother about putting up houses along elephant corridors and then claim that elephants have encroached into their settlements; even though it’s always vice versa. 

Despite numerous awareness programmes, both by  government departments and private wildlife groups on coexistence, people don’t seem to take this principle seriously. This applies to people in any kind of terrain, be it the hill country where a majority of the estate population grapple with the human-leopard conflict,  or in the North Central province for instance where HEC is almost a daily occurrence. 

Therefore, in this backdrop,  the least the government could do is to convene meetings with all stakeholders and experts and draw up an immediate action plan. But at the pace they are going, it is doubtful as to whether the country’s biodiversity is of any importance to this government!

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