- Female elephant translocated despite research proving its ineffectiveness
Over the decades, much research has gone into the concept of translocating elephants as a solution to the human-elephant conflict (HEC). Recorded evidence by Sri Lanka’s foremost wild elephant researcher and expert, Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando, shows that elephants that have been translocated away from their home range eventually find their way back to their original home areas.
Unfortunately, when these elephants begin making their way back home, they end up traversing through other villages that are unfamiliar, which eventually ends with the animal causing some damage and thus usually posing a hindrance to villagers, adding to the centuries of human-elephant conflict. Over these elephants’ journey back home, there is an abundance of recorded evidence of several deaths among both humans and elephants.
Even the few translocated elephants who do not move back to their familiar territories – and instead manage to make a home whenever they have been forcefully moved to – are proven to manifest aggressive and abnormal behaviour, possibly due to the extreme stress and physio-psychological effects that they underwent.
In the worst case, according to Biodiversity Conservation and Research Circle Convener Supun Lahiru Prakash, there are situations where translocations go horribly wrong, resulting in fatalities, as was the case when a magnificent tusker from the Galgamuwa area was hurriedly translocated by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) on the orders of a Minister, with disastrous consequences.
Hence, he pointed out that it is more than evident from hard scientific research and facts that translocation does not solve the root cause, and may in fact aggravate the issue, or at the very least, only translocate the problem to another area.
Referring to a recent case, he expressed his surprise and disappointment to hear that the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) captured and translocated a female wild elephant that was found in a pit in the Walaswewa area of the Galgamuwa Divisional Secretariat of Kurunegala District, to Wilpattu National Park.
“It is surprising that the Department of Wildlife Conservation, which has been entrusted with the primary responsibility of wildlife conservation in this country, has taken the lead in doing this in an arbitrary, unfair and unscientific manner without considering social behaviour patterns of elephants,” he told us. In his understanding, this is also the first time ever a female has been translocated in this way.
Prakash explained that after research was extensively conducted, they concluded several decades ago that female elephants cannot be translocated.
“Females need to be with their herd to survive. They cannot survive on their own, so when one female is moved to an unknown location, it is likely that they will either worsen the HEC as they don’t know how to survive alone or they will die,” he stated, regarding why this move by DWC is being condemned.
Prakash stressed that wildlife conservation and wildlife-human conflict management must be a scientific endeavour. Noting that female elephants spend their entire lives with the herd in which they were born and raised, and never leave the herd and spend time alone, Prakash stated that thus, a very seriously wrong precedent is being set by a department that should work based on science, by removing a female elephant from her herd and leaving her stranded in an unknown area.
According to Prakash, there is no evidence in Sri Lanka that female animals contribute to human-elephant conflicts. He claimed that only some of the mature male elephants contribute to human-elephant conflicts, so most strategies that are implemented in Sri Lanka mainly focus on male elephants. For example, he noted: “Only the problematic male elephants are translocated or sent to open prisons such as Horowpathana.” However, he emphasised that it has now been scientifically proven that such translocations or confining the bull elephants into holding grounds are counterproductive in terms of elephant-human conflict management or wild elephant conservation.
“The DWC knows this; it is their job to know this, so it is totally unacceptable for the Department of Wildlife Conservation to capture and relocate a female animal in order to control the people’s opposition, saying that she would cause human-elephant conflicts.”
Giving us some insight into the issue at hand, Prakash stated that the DWC had told them that the people in the village began protesting that the elephant was hurting and harming them, so they had no option but to remove her.
“In such a case, it is up to the DWC to educate the public on why translocation cannot be done, and offer them other solutions that we have researched, which are proven to work,” he stated, offering a solution. The HEC is probably the single biggest environmental issue that faces the country. It is a man-made, politically-fuelled conflict, a complex interaction between humans and wild elephants with detrimental consequences to both species. In a recent report by environmentalist Srilal Miththapala, he too had noted that piecemeal solutions will not do, adding that many Sri Lankan elephant researchers have developed good practical solutions to mitigate the issue. Right now, in terms of the Galgamuwa elephant translocation issue, most environmentalists claim that what is needed is a holistic, well-planned, all-encompassing strategy, taking into consideration all the available research by private researchers, to be implemented on a nationwide scale, in a consistent and cohesive manner, without ad-hoc political interventions.
Therefore, the Biodiversity Conservation and Research Circle is currently requesting the DWC to inform the people and community leaders of that area of the reality of this most recent translocation and take immediate action to send this animal back to her herd. “We further emphasise that if any harm happens to the animal in the new environment, the Department of Wildlife Conservation should take responsibility for that,” Prakash stated, in hopes that this mistake will be rectified as soon as possible.
