Great documentary trailer on human elephant conflict
What’s with me and elephants? Groundviews has been trying to make out that I’m comparing elephants and Tamils. To be accurate, I actually compared people from Hambantota, Colombo and Tamils to elephants. It’s about unity baby. Trying to offend everybody.
But seriously, humans may be thin skinned and elephants thick, but we do share this island and elephants do deserve a bit of land to live in. I say this because I like elephants, but the policy also makes sense if you’re putting humans first. Our wildlife is a natural resource. It has value for tourism, science and objective awesome. This is a resource we should preserve for future generations. As Groundviews said in May:
This is a serious issue. Over 10 years, there have been over 1,300 elephants that have been killed and on average, over 60 humans a year for the past 15 years are killed by elephants.
Why Now?
What’s with the fuss now? Well, there are rumors that the bid-for Hambantota Commonwealth Games will displace elephants around Yala. They’re conducting an elephant census now in the national parks. Meanwhile, during the Dondra Perahera, Banuka the elephant went on a bit of a stampede. Meanwhile, there is ongoing human-elephant conflict throughout border villages and on the main roads.
The governments elephant policy is dubious at best. There are reports that elephants were dodgily taken by Ministers like Mervyn Silva and the animals have been given as gifts to countries like China. The government seems to view elephants as a commodity, judged by their using a census of the wild to target elephants for capture and captivity.
But elephants aren’t truly domesticated. They don’t breed well in captivity and the males act like Mervyn Silva when they’re in heat. They are wild animals and should remain so.
So yeah. Elephants have rights too.
I’ve heard that a herd will not take back a baby elephant who’s been in contact with humans. Not sure how true this is. If this is the case hurt or orphaned babies would have to be domesticated and looked after.
In my view, we should leave all elephants in the wild alone, and do our best to keep them that way, and only take in elephants for unavoidable reasons into captivity, when other alternatives fail. I do not think we should seek any wild animals for taming and if we must only use captive elephants for the peraheras around the country.
If the temples must own elephants they must be held to certain standards that are internationally acceptable as humane, and to that extent may not be allowed to be tied to one place all day as most are today, but be allowed certain freedoms and bathing schedules out of sight of the public to pursue their particular pleasures of eating or frolicking as they please.
It seems idealist or a tall order, but the sooner we honestly try and take the elephants well being into account first and only our personal agendas later will we become a truly civilized society that can be proud of our traditions.
What is wrong with a perahera with 20 elephants none whom are tuskers. If not today this condition will be forced on our children before too long so what are we trying to do? Just delay the inevitable for our selfish gratification!!
What about all the chickens, cows, goats, fish – you’re ok with them being butchered for meat?
From what I know there is no rejection from the herd simply because they had contact with humans but joining a herd is not a simple task for any single animal of a spices that operate in packs/herds.
I think pinnawala orphanage takes in only the physically disabled ones who cannot live on their own. But there is one in udawalawa which look after baby elephants in order to release them after they grow up. There you dont get to interact with them. Apparently if the baby elephants get too friendly with people and start to depend on humans they will not be able to live on their own later in the wild.
Yeah! They taste good LOL
Elephants are an endangered species, chickens, cows, goats are not…can’t really compare the two.
Meaning, if we bred elephants it would be ok to kill, cook and eat them?
No…coming from an environmental scientist’s perspective, there would be nothing wrong with killing a certain number of them if they were not endangered (which is different from just breeding them). It’s called sustainable use…
Why cant we do that with humans then?
I think we already do it with humans. May be except eating part LOL.
Feel free to eat Mervyn Silva…in fact I encourage you to
No we don’t… earth is being overrun by humans and they are a plague of epic proportions, eating away at earth like a cancer.