Let's co-exist with the Elephants
by Ravi Corea - Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation
Society
For 18 years the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society has been
working in Wasgamuwa to develop measures that would help turn
human-elephant conflict into coexistence. For the first time in Sri
Lanka the SLWCS applied the concept of erecting solar powered electric
fences around villages rather than around national parks. The first
pioneering fence is still functioning after 18 years. Since the society
introduced this concept the Department of Wildlife Conservation, other
conservationists and NGOs are using it in their efforts to mitigate
human-elephant conflicts. Yet such victories can be considered minor
compared to the magnitude of human-elephant conflict and the need to
address the multitude of issues that contribute to it.
For more than a decade and half the SLWCS has been living in the
conflict observing the damage people and elephants inflict on each other
and doing its best to develop measures to address them. In the course of
18 years the society has seen farmers trampled and gored to death and an
incredible number of crops and homes destroyed by elephants.
The society has also witnessed firsthand the horrendous suffering of
elephants that had been shot and injured, and experienced the colossal
feeling of loss at their deaths. For most of these injured elephants
there was no reprieve.
With no veterinary care and with no policy to euthanise elephants
that were beyond help many of these elephants died after a prolonged and
meaningless suffering-rotting away slowly as their life passed away in
minute gasps.
The corridor is vital for the elephants from the Wasgamuwa National
Park to access an irrigation tank that is located outside for water and
food. The corridor is also used by villagers and it is not unusual to
see both people and elephants travelling through the corridor
practically every day. The Tree Hut provides an extraordinary window to
look upon a tableau that happens practically every day in a landscape
that is both used by elephants and people.
School children walk to school amidst wild elephants |
The road that cuts across the corridor is used by schools children,
women and men, Buddhist monks and farmers. Every day these people have
to travel through the corridor however much they are apprehensive of
elephants. It is not uncommon to see school children, men and women
walking, biking or travelling in Land Master tractors, motorcycles and
tuk tuks while elephants are present on either side.
For nearly 12 years the SLWCS has been monitoring the corridor from a
tree hut to gather information on human-elephant interactions. Since
that time people and elephants had used the corridor without any
untoward incidents. But since recently matters have begun to take a turn
for the worst. With new economic immigrants moving into the region, the
increasing population, opening up of whatever remaining habitat of
elephants outside protected areas for development, disturbances in other
parts of the elephants range and definitely the lack of a national
effort to address human-elephant conflict has resulted in more and more
people taking matters into their own hands.
Some people travelling through this corridor in a mistaken belief
that all elephants are dangerous, harass the elephants by making noise,
lighting firecrackers and travelling in large and noisy three wheeler
convoys to scare them away.
Such behaviour unfortunately makes elephants especially the dominant
bulls more aggressive and hostile and prone to attack rather than make
them scared of people. School children are highly vulnerable since they
have to walk to school and back in the morning and afternoon amidst wild
elephants.
On numerous occasions when the situation had reached an impasse
because an elephant had become aggressive, the society had helped by
transporting people, especially women and children or by escorting
safely the various vehicles travelling through the corridor to their
villages.
Chandima, a field scientist of the SLWCS, as usual on the day of the
incident left with a group of volunteers to the tree hut in the
afternoon. He reached the tree hut around 3.30 p.m.
When they got there it was very quiet and there weren’t any elephants
or people in the corridor.
After about 10 minutes, a small group of five elephants came from the
north side of the corridor and they crossed the road and started to feed
along the western side as they moved towards the irrigation tank in the
south. They observed this herd through binoculars, took pictures for
individual identifications, and notes on their activities.
Suddenly, the herd seemed very disturbed and started to walk back
fast towards the forest they had come from. Chandima was surprised, as
there were no human activities on the corridor and he didn’t hear any
noises or gunshots. But he was sure from the behaviour of the elephants
that it was definitely a human disturbance that made them rush back to
the forest. The herd did not come back again.
A little later Chandima observed an elephant partly hidden by a patch
of scrub standing still very close to the tree hut.
It was a lone bull. It didn't come out but waited by the edge of the
forest as if checking the area. After about 15 minutes the bull slowly
came out and started to feed 10 meteres north of the tree hut.
Shortly a motor cycle came from the south of the corridor. There were
four men on the motor bike and they were heading towards the village in
the north. Since the elephant was feeding close to the road, Chandima
signalled to them about his presence.
They continued on without any incident and Chandima recognized two of
the riders.
Then suddenly the same motor bike appeared from the direction of the
village and it was travelling very fast. This time there were only two
riders on the motorbike.
They stopped where the elephant had crossed the road and one man
jumped out with a gun and started to walk toward the elephant which was
now 50 meters away from the road.
Chandima immediately realised that this man was going to shoot the
elephant, because he had been told by villagers that there was
supposedly a group responsible for all the recent elephant shootings in
the area.
Chandima shouted to the man from the tree hut, “Hey what are you
going to do? Stop! Stop!” But he didn't listen.
Then Chandima changed his tone to an appeal and called out, “Mallie
(little brother) please don't do this, you don’t need to do this.”
The man then stopped walking and told something to his friend who was
standing on the road. He shouted out to Chandima angrily, “What's the
problem? If you want to talk to us then come down from the tree hut”.
Chandima replied, “No, I am not coming down, but please don’t shoot the
elephant.” Then the man with the gun had started to walk towards the
elephant very fast. Chandima knew then that he was definitely going to
shoot the elephant. He shouted again” I’m begging you Mallie, please
stop and wait I’m coming down to talk to you.”
Surprisingly during this altercation the bull had only moved about 5
meteres away from his original position. As Chandima got down from the
tree hut the volunteers and visitors with him were all terrified.
Chandima went down very quickly and ran towards the men. He then
pleaded with the men not to shoot the elephant.
Chandima realised that he needed to be careful of the words he used
and that he had to talk to them in a calm manner.
Watchful of elephants crossing the corridor |
Eventually, the man with the gun came back and he looked very angry.
The first thing he told Chandima was to delete all the pictures that he
or his friends had taken.
To this Chandima had replied that while he could inform the police
with the photographic evidence, he was not going to do it, since he
wanted to talk with them to provide a solution to whatever the problems
they had with elephants.
The men argued “You don’t know the difficulties that we face with
elephants every day, we can't get a good harvest from our crops, our
incomes are destroyed and we can't even go to the town because of
elephants in the corridor.” They continued to tell him their grievances
with elephants giving several examples.
Chandima responded by explaining that shooting elephants was not the
solution to their problems. By this time they had calmed down and were
not as aggressive and had told Chandima, “Because of you, we are not
going to kill this elephant, we know about you and the SLWCS, and the
work the society had done to help people to protect themselves from
elephants.” Chandima was relieved and also realised that this was a good
opportunity to get some information about how they shoot elephants.
The two men had explained that if they want to kill an elephant on
the spot they increased the number of pellets they put into the
cartridge and targeted the area between the eye and the ear. They also
try to get as close as possible-depending on the terrain-usually
anywhere between 5 to 10 meteres to the elephant to shoot it. If they
want the elephant to die some distance away from the place where it was
shot, then they reduced the number of pellets in the cartridge. If they
want the elephant to suffer, then they target the legs, and if they
don't want to kill and just want to chase it away them they targeted the
back. After he had managed to calm down the situation and convinced the
farmers to leave the elephant alone, Chandima told the men that the
SLWCS will try to speak to the Department of Wildlife Conservation to
resolve their problems.
The men asked Chandima to speak on their behalf to the Wildlife
Department and obtain thunder flashes for farmers to chase elephants
from their fields.
Chandima had said he will do his best to arrange a meeting with the
Wildlife Department to discuss all these issues and concerns.
As a solution for this problem the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation
Society is looking into providing these villagers with a bus service. It
would probably be the first elephant friendly bus service in the world.
|