In Focus

Islandwide census of elephants:

A welcome move

The largest mammal on Earth, the elephant is a threatened species and needs to be conserved. However, the on going human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has become a major problem to th7e conservation of this majestic animal.

The elephant is an animal that needs to be highly protected in our country not only because it is a threatened species but also because it is the only animal accorded the honour of carrying the Sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha at the world famous Esala Perahera from ancient times.

Therefore, the initiative taken by the Department of Wildlife to carry out an islandwide census of elephants in the country for the first time is of great significance.

According to the Director General of the Department of Wildlife Conservation, Dr Chandrawansa Pathiraja, experts in the movement of wild elephants have already arrived in the country from India and the USA to assist local field officers to conduct the survey.

Even though such elephant censuses have been conducted in the past they have been confined to elephant populations in and around national parks. The proposed census will cover the elephant population in the entire country.

He explained that while a budget is being drawn up for the islandwide survey expected to be carried out before the end of August, the officials are presently studying the available data and demographic records of elephant behaviour patterns in national parks.This is being done with the objective of identifying suitable habitats to monitor the elephants, he said.

Presently, over 1,000 officers are being trained to carry out this survey and already hundreds of officers have attended the first workshop held in this connection at the Department's Training Centre in Minneriya.

Dr Pathiraja explained that the survey has to be conducted within two days in order to avoid counting the same elephant herd twice, as these animals keep moving from one place to another after a specific time period.

Conducting a census of elephants is certainly no easy task but with the assistance of experts, the department hopes to make it a success.He said that survey teams would have to be sent to all the identified elephant habitats in the country in order to get a correct count of the number of elephants in the country today.

According to Dr.Pathiraja, the elephant population has increased from the number recorded in 2007 . The present population is said to be between 5,000 to 6,000 or even more.The census will provide valuable information to understand the movement of elephants in their natural habitats and help maintain their corridors, thereby reducing the threat to the conservation of these animals,he said. The data gathered through this census could be the base to identify the threats posed to their conservation due to loss of habitat and the human-elephant conflict.The number of elephants being killed in the country is alarming.

According to the statistical report of the WCD,the number of elephant deaths in the Mahaweli Zone had been 35 in the last three months alone while only a total of 70 deaths were recorded from the area for the entire year of 2010.Elephants too have a right to life.

If we humans are going to keep encroaching into their territory it is only correct that we provide these gentle giants of the jungle,( whom we use to carry out various tasks for us when it suits us),with alternate habitats.If we bulldoze into their natural habitats in the name of development without first relocating the elephants in these areas, we need to be prepared for the obvious - attacks on crops,property and even life by these wild elephants who roam their habitual territories and only know the laws of the jungle.

-Miru

The Earth

1.How fast does our Earth move?

2.Why is the time around the world different?

3. How old is the Earth?

4.How many types of climates are there?

5.What is quicksand and how is it formed?

Natural history

1.Which is the world’s heaviest insect?

2. The most feared scorpion is the fat tailed scorpion of the Atlas mountains of the Sahara. True or false?

3.Why does a shark sink the moment it stops swimming?

4. Name the living fossil first discovered in 1938?

5. How much eggs does the sturgeon lay and what do we call the eggs when we eat them?

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Answers

The Earth

1. The Earth has two movements: it spins on its own axis and it orbits around the Sun. The setting of the Sun, Moon and Stars and the occurrence of day and night is caused by its rotation on its axis. One rotation takes 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.091 seconds. There are minute variations because of the friction of ocean tides and changes in the Earth’s crust. The Earth also moves around the Sun and at some points of its rotation, it is closer to the Sun than at others. A planet moves faster when it’s closer to the Sun than when it’s farther away. The orbital speed varies between 18.8 miles per second to 18.2 miles per second. The Earth takes 365 days and six hours to complete one revolution round the Sun.

2. A uniform time is maintained around the world. In 1884, time zones were set up around the world taking measures from Greenwich in London, England. Each time zone on the East or West of Greenwich has a different time; either one hour ahead or one hour behind its neighbouring zone. The Greenwich Mean Time is followed all over the world. The Greenwich zone line or Meridian starts at zero and there is a four minutes difference between each meridian.

3. The Earth, our home planet is believed to have started forming over 4.5 billion years ago. There are two theories about its formation. Astronomers calculate the Earth to be 5,500,000,000 years old.

4. There are mainly five types of climates. They are tropical, sub-tropical, mid latitude, high latitude and high altitude climates.

5. Quicksand is light, lose sand which is mixed with water and generally occurs near the mouths of large rivers and flat shores.

Quicksand has different form of grains of sand as they are not angular but round. Some of the quicksands are a mixture of sand and mud or pebble along with mud.

Natural history

1. The world’s heaviest insect is the African Goliath beetle which weighs 100 g and measures up to 11 cm.

2. The most feared scorpion is the fat-tailed scorpion of the Atlas mountains of the Sahara. The sting carried in the tail can produce a venom capable of killing a man in about four hours.

3. A shark sinks the moment it stops swimming because it has no swim bladder, the buoyancy organ found in other types of fish.

4. The living fossil first discovered in 1938 was the coelacanth.

5. The sturgeon lays about 2.5 million eggs and we call the eggs caviar when we eat them.