Two wild elephants killed at Karuwalagaswewa

• Villagers had no alternative but to lay live wires to protect cultivated land from the marauding herds  

By Hiran Priyankara Jayasinghe   

Two wild elephants, one of them a tusker, had been electrocuted and their carcasses were recovered last morning by Karuwalagaswewa police.The two jumbos popularly known as Wasala and Walagamba often roamed into villages. 

 Wildlife conservators said the two jumbo were 35 and 40 year of age. They had been electrocuted when they came in contact with a live wire laid around a coconut estate in Thabbowa. Residents of the area said they have been facing the threat of wild elephants since long and that a 70 year old farmer in Thenuwara village was trampled to death by a jumbo. They said villagers had no alternative but to lay live wires to protect cultivated land from the marauding herds.