Sri Lanka is believed to have the highest density of elephants in Asia, but due to habitat loss, human-elephant conflict has risen sharply, resulting in increased deaths on both sides.
Despite the reverence for and integration of elephants into Sri Lankan culture, the state of elephants in the country seems to fall by the wayside when it comes to the practical concerns of economics and public safety. Although there are laws that seek to protect elephant life, as well as the existence of national parks where elephants can live with minimal outside interference, neither seem to be particularly well enforced or effective.
There are over fifteen national parks in Sri Lanka that seek to shelter elephants, including Udawalawe, Kaudulla, Minneriya, and Yala. While the intent appears to be sincere, the pragmatic results show the shortcomings of this approach. Since independence, the strategy of the Sri Lankan government has been to fence off the national parks and attempt to force elephant residence to remain inside the parks through elephant drives, intimidation, and relocation. This has been met with relative failure. Because the traditional ranges of elephants go back generations across the island, elephants driven into the parks either seek to return to their original ranges, try to leave the park to establish a new range, or find themselves in an overcrowded area that cannot support the volume of elephants herds that have been forced to coexist.
As elephants exit the parks, they inevitably come into conflict with humans. Roads provide the obvious danger of motorists, and entrance into villages can easily precipitate trauma and damage. Crops provide extreme temptation to elephants, whether or not they are starving, and attempts to use migration routes that go back centuries result in elephants finding themselves cut off by modern infrastructure.
In the past year, nearly five hundred elephants have died in Sri Lanka due to human-elephant conflict, a rate which has increased sharply from previous years. There are only less than six thousand wild elephants living in Sri Lanka, and due to slow procreation rates, if the death rates continue, it could pose a serious risk to the wild Sri Lankan elephant population. Furthermore, in the past year, over one hundred and seventy humans have died in conflict with elephants. The traditional methods of deterrence are failing, resulting in illegal killing of elephants, such as by use of exceedingly high-voltage fences and baited “jaw bombs.”
Gradual attempts are being made to change the methods for human coexistence with elephants, such as the creation of migratory corridors, preventing various herds from being cut off from each other. Another possibility, introduced by Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando, proposes using temporary fencing only around crops and houses, with the crop fences removed at the end of harvest season so elephants can forage on the crop remains. This initiative has thus far proven successful on a small scale, with human-elephant conflict virtually nonexistent in the villages in which it is implemented.