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Wild Elephants in Sri Lanka
@ the Elephant and Biodiversity Forum
by Jayantha Jayewardena
Sri Lanka is an island that lies south of India and has a land area of 6.56 million hectares or 16.21 million acres. Its present population is over 18 million people. This population, which has a density of 259 people per square kilometer and growing at the rate of 1.5%, makes increasing demands on the country's resources.
Of greatest concern is the increasing demand for new land, which is limited. In 1881 the forest cover in the island was 84% of the land area. At the turn of the century it was down to 70% of the land area. Due to the increasing population, large tracts of forests have been cleared, mainly for settlement and agriculture. The forest area continued to decline. It was 44% in 1956, 27% in 1981 and at present is down to 22%. This shows a reduction of 62% of the first count in just 117 years.
Sri Lanka has the Asian species (Elephus maximus) judging from past records it seems that around 17,000 elephants have been exported, destroyed and died in captivity in the 19th century. The number of elephants left in the wild at the beginning of the 20th century is distressingly low. One assessment was 2000 animals.
A survey conducted by the Department of Wildlife Conservation in 1994 revealed that there were about 2,000 elephants in the wild, except in the North and Eastern Provinces where this survey could not be conducted. This led to the belief that the wild population was between 2,500 and 3,000. The survey revealed that there were 52% adults, 22% sub adults and 26% juveniles. This is a healthy population structure and augurs well for the future if other conditions are favourable. However, now the Department contends that there are over 4,000 elephants in the wild.
A herd of elephants, contrary to popular belief, is led by the oldest female in the group. A herd consists of females, their female progeny and males till they reach adulthood. The males, once they become adults, are pushed out of the herd and roam freely, alone or with one or more males. A herd of elephants in Sri Lanka comprises of 8-20 animals or sometimes even more. A number of such herds along with lone males and male groups, constitute a population of elephants.
The males are ejected from the herd to prevent inbreeding that would have occurred if they continued within the same herd. Males are able to detect, from far off, when females in other herds are in estrous and ready to mate. They have to fight off other males who also converge on the female in season. This is natures way of ensuring that the fittest male sires the new calves and that fresh blood comes into the herd.
A female elephant breeds every four years if conditions are good. They must feel secure and not threatened in any way. They must also have sufficient food and water. The gestation period is around 22 months. The ability of the females to breed regularly is an important aspect of elephant conservation. Elephants line up to around 60-75 years.
Populations of elephants have different home ranges, beyond which they do not move. Sometimes the ranges of two populations overlap in certain areas. Home ranges cover an area that is dependent on the size of the elephant population and their needs of food and water. The larger the population the larger their home range. The size of the home range is also dependent on the quality and quantity of food and water that is available within the area. Elephants are not aware of man made boundaries and therefore come out of sanctuaries and other protected areas, when moving seasonally within their home range. Some home ranges are completely outside any protected area.
Recent studies carried out in Sri Lanka by Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando, indicate that a home range between 50 to 150 square kilometers. The home ranges of the males, however, are larger going up to 380 square kilometers. A large ranging area for males is important for the conservation of genetic diversity and prevention of inbreeding.
Elephants feed on a wide range of vegetation from grasses, small shrubs, palms, vines, trees, herbaceous broad-leaved plants and woody plants. They also consume leaves, twigs, bark, fruits and sometimes-even flowers.
Though elephants are not very discriminating feeders, they require a large bulk of food. They generally break off much more than they actually eat. Elephants have very ineffective digestive systems and generally a lot of food is passed out unutilised. An elephant gets its protein from the browse that is available in the forest. The fibrous material from the twigs helps to clean out the parasitic nematodes from their stomachs as fur and hair does for carnivores. The elephant spends over 16 hours in feeding intermittently. Feeding is mainly throughout the night. It consumes around 250 Kg of fresh vegetation each day.
Elephants regularly raid cultivated lands in search of food. Here they consume fruits like banana (Musa sapientum) and papaw (Carica papaya), grains like kurakkan (Elusine coracana), maize (Zea mays) and rice (Oryza sativa). They also relish sugar cane (Saccharum officiaarum) and manioc (Manihot utilissima). The only common crop that elephants do not seem to like is gingelly or sesame (Sesamum indicum).
It is interesting to note that when baby elephants start to eat leaves and grasses they also take in, at the initial stages, small quantities of the fresh feacal matter deposited by the mothers or others in the herd. In doing this, the micro organisms in the faeces are established in the stomach of the young ones and enables the breakdown of cellulose in the plants they eat.
With the clearing of the forests, elephant habitats have been steadily reduced. With this reduction the elephants have found it difficult to contain themselves in their now limited forest areas. They have been used to migrating seasonally to other parts of their home range in search of food and water.
With habitat reduction elephant populations have broken up and some herds have been pocketed in smaller patches of jungle. With their movements restricted, especially when food and water resources are depleted, the elephants wander into the newly cultivated areas, which was within their former home ranges, in search of food. Here the elephants find a ready source of food, which is tasty, nutritious and easily harvestable.
On the other hand the farmers were not prepared to allow the elephants to destroy the crops that they had taken a great deal of trouble to cultivate and on which their income and livelihood depends. In one night elephants can destroy six months earnings of a farmer. The conflicts between man and elephant start with these elephant incursions. With reducing habitats the conflicts keep increasing.
At first the conflicts that developed, between man and elephant, were not of a serious nature. The farmers got together and drove the offending elephants away. However, with time, due to increasing populations, the elephant habitats reduced rapidly. The conflicts increased in number and intensity with injuries and deaths to both human and elephants.
The then Warden of the Department of Wildlife, Mr. C.W. Nicholas states, in his Administration Reports, that on an average 100 elephants were shot as well as captured annually, between 1945 and 1951. He says that another 50 per annum were shot in the defence of crops. This meant that around 150 wild elephants were killed each year. Subsequent records show that between 1951 and 1969 a total of 1163 elephants were lost in the wild of which 639 animals were killed in the defence of crops. This means that on an average, between 1951 and 1969, 61 elephants that tried to raid crops, were killed each year.
Elephants continue to be killed in larger numbers now because their confrontations with farmers continue. My records show that, even now on an average, well over 100 elephants are killed each year. The figure in 1996 was 121 and in 1997 it rose to 131. There records do not take into consideration the number of elephant that die in the wild of natural causes and whose deaths go unnoticed.
A survey carried out by me early this year showed that the main reasons for the human-elephant conflicts developing are: poor land use planning; regular damage to crops and dwellings by elephants; reduction of elephant habitat; villagers exploiting jungle produce; poor farmers' organisation for protection of crops and property; dangerous crop protection measures; farmers' lack of knowledge of elephant behaviour; farmers lack of awareness of need to conserve elephants; on-going civil war; inefficiency of conservation managers, and lack of data and research
The Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC) have adopted a number of strategies in its effort to solve some of the conflicts between humans and elephants:
- Elephant Control Units, located in strategic areas, used to visit sites where elephants were causing problems and drive the elephants away. However with increasing conflicts in different locations it was more than what these Units could handle and they were subsequently disbanded.
- A number of elephant drives were conducted to move pocketed herds of different, which were causing trouble in human settlements, to National Parks that were located within a reasonable distance.
- Another strategy that the DWLC adopted and continues to adopt is to tranquilize troublesome elephants and translocate them to new habitats. Earlier some animals were tamed and sold.
- The DWLC decided to set up elephant corridors, between two elephant habitats, to facilitate the free movement of elephants between these habitats. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, except for me these corridors were not established.
- The DWLC has also erected electric fences in strategic locations to prevent the movement of elephants into developed areas and causing trouble. Some of these have been effective, but the erection and maintenance costs are very high.
- The Department of Wildlife Conservation is also faced with some problems, which prevent them from engaging in effective elephant conservation.
- There is no accurate data of the elephant populations in the country, let alone details of herds, sex, age structure and other information. These figures are difficult to obtain and as a result planning strategies for solutions to elephant problems too become difficult. Since there is no factual information to base conservation strategies on.
- No details of habitats and home ranges of the herds are available. How many elephants can particular National Parks, protected areas and other forest habitats hold.
- The DWLC has no firm policy for elephant management and conservation. It has no Master Plan either.
The solution to the political and ecological problems confronting elephant conservation are at most times, in conflict with each other. The main political problem is the need to satisfy the demand for developed land to feed the growing population in the country. The major ecological problem is the reduction of the elephant habitats, which will result in the decimation of the species.
What we must try to do is to save the maximum number of elephants possible but more importantly in the numbers that will ens@ ددِ<ll survive in the long-term future. I must be accepted that all the elephants that exist at present cannot be saved.
There is a Minimum Viable Population figure, which is the number that is necessary to keep an elephant population alive for the next fifty or hundred years. This is the number, which ensures that the elephant population will continue to survive, where the number of births compensates for the natural deaths. The numbers of breeding females guide the number of births.
Once the MVP is determined we must ensure that there is sufficient quality habitat available for the elephants to live. By quality habitat I mean jungles from which elephants are able to find sufficient food and water without having to go out and raid human cultivations. Some elephant habitats have sufficient food and water but the some these resources are depleted and it is necessary to enrich the habitats.
Enriching the habitat entails increasing the availability of food by planting shrubs, grasses etc and water by increasing the water retention capacity in the jungle reservoirs and pools.
Habitat enrichment has engaged the attention of conservationists for sometime. Habitat enrichment has to be done without disturbing the natural ecology of the forest. Therefore before any enrichment programmes are put in place, a careful study of the ecology of that jungle has to be made. It is also difficult to implement habitat enrichment plans because the very elephants for whose benefit the habitat is being enriched, tend to destroy the young plants or grass that is planted.
Captive Breeding
When a species in the wild is threatened with extinction, it is necessary to ensure that they are bred in captivity to ensure the survival of that species. They could then even be re-introduced into the wild. In this context the captive breeding of the elephant is also very important. We have made some progress in this direction at The Elephant Orphanage at Pinnawela.
A Symposium on Elephant Management and Conservation held in Colombo really brought together all those who had studied, researched or observed any aspect of the Sri Lankan elephant both wild and tame. They all made very valuable contributions through their presentations. The proceedings of this Symposium are being published and will be a very valuable addition to our knowledge of the elephants in Sri Lanka. This will also give us directions for future studies and research and also help in future conservation planing.
About the Author
Jayantha Jayewardene has been studying elephants for over 30 years and is the author of the comprehensive book 'The Elephant in Sri Lanka'. Jayewardene has a group of elephant enthusiasts who are engaged in many elephant related projects. He invites anyone who is interested in assisting in elephant conservation in any way to contact him at 941-615/32, Rajagiriya Gardens, Nawala Road, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka or e-mail romalijj@slt.lk.
http://www.search.lk/elephant/news/wild_e.htm
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