Elephants Highlights
Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage
The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is home to about 60 elephants, out of which many are baby elephants found, abandoned or orphaned in the wild. They are being cared, fed and trained by the wild life authorities. The best time to visit is during the feeding times, when one will have the opportunity of seeing the baby elephants being bottle-fed. Also you could accompany the elephants to a river close-by and see the elephants having their daily bath.
It was started in 1975 by the Department of Wildlife on a twenty five acre coconut property on the Maha Oya River at Rambukkana. The orphanage was primarily designed to afford care and protection to the many baby elephants found in the jungle without their mothers. In most of these cases the mother had either died or been killed. In some instances the baby had fallen into a pit and in others the mother had fallen in and died.
Initially this orphanage was at the Wilpattu National Park, then shifted to the tourist complex at Bentota and then to the Dehiwala Zoo. From the Zoo it was shifted to Pinnawala. At the time it was shifted the orphanage, it had five baby elephants which formed its nucleus. It was hoped that this facility would attract both local and foreign visitors, the income from which would help to maintain the orphanage.
Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage
In 1978 the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage was taken over by the National Zoological Gardens from the Department of Wildlife and a captive breeding program launched in 1982.
At Pinnawala an attempt was made to simulate, in a limited way, the conditions in the wild. Animals are allowed to roam freely during the day and a herd structure was allowed to form.
The Department of National Zoological Gardens has set up this orphanage for baby elephants at Pinnawala which is about 13 Km away from the Kegalle Town along the Kegalle- Rambukkana Road.
Kegalle is 77 Km from Colombo on the Colombo- Kandy road and the turn off to the orphanage is at the Karandupona Junction.
The orphanage is 16 years old. The animals that were brought during the initial years are now capable of breeding and have in fact bred.
Yala (Ruhuna) National Park
Situated 309 km south of Colombo, Yala is approximately 1,259 sq.km in extent and is located in the south-eastern corner of the island. Its northern boundaries border on the Lahugala Elephant Sanctuary and it has the added bonus of a scenic ocean frontage.
The terrain is varied flat plains alternating with rocky outcrops. The vegetation ranges from open parkland to dense jungle. Water holes, small lakes, lagoons and streams provide water for the animals and birds. The specialty here is the large numbers of elephants.
Yala (Ruhuna) National Park
Life Style of Elephants
At any given time, you can see large numbers of baby elephants and female elephants. In a herd you always find female elephants and occasionally herds of male elephants too could be seen.
Babies are looked after by the mother, aunt or another female elephants while male elephants are loners and never live in a group and are attracted in to a group during the mating season (from September to October) only and most of the parks are closed for visitors during this period.
Their average height (height is measured to the shoulder) goes to about 8 feet (2.5m) and 1800 Kg in weight while they consume about 200 kg of foliage and grass per day and plenty of water for drinking and bathing.
They are very active in the night and most of them sleep under large trees in the day time. Only a few tuskers can be seen in Sri Lanka due to brutal killings as mentioned before to get their tusks due to its high value. However new laws have been introduced to protect them and let tomorrow’s people too marvel these gigantic beasts.
Life Style of Elephants
Some people believe that elephants have grave yards and they travel near a water resource when they are about to die. Some do not believe this tale and say when they are old their teeth are wasted and due to the difficulty of consuming heavy branches of trees make them go to a place where there is grass and water.
Comments