Lanka has healthy elephant population -survey

Nuwan KODIKARA, Panduka SAMARASEKARA and Tennakoon KULASEKERA

Sri Lanka is endowed with a total number of 5,879 wild elephants according to the elephant census conducted by the Wild Life Department from August 11 to 14. Agrarian Services and Wild Life Minister S M Chandrasena disclosed this at a ceremony held yesterday to release the census report.

Minister Chandrasena said the Mahaweli wild life zone has been identified as the region with the highest density of wild elephants with 1,751 animals while the central wild-life zone is the region with the lowest density of 47 wild elephants.

Minister Chandrasena said according to the latest statistics obtained the number of wild tuskers amounted to 122 and the number of baby elephants is 1107.

The census was carried out through 1553 observation centres country wide assisted by a team of about 3500 personnel including wild life officials, security forces and police personnel, university dons, students, Civil Security Department officials and farmers. According to the data obtained Sri Lanka has a greater number of elephants compared to other countries in Asia and its elephant population is very healthy.

Minister Chandrasena said his ministry would make use of the elephant census results to devise and implement measures to minimize the human - elephant conflict.

Ministry Secretary Udeni Wickremasinghe and Wild Life Director General H G Ratnayake were also present.

http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/09/03/news15.asp