News
Civil defence troops bolster elephant project
The government has commenced deploying large numbers of Civil Defence Force officials to work with wildlife department officers on maintaining electrified anti-elephant fences erected around villages.
The Minister of Environment and Wildlife Resources, S. M. Chandrasena, said the government had also begun to restore six tanks in Lunugamwehera to generate better water and food supplies for elephants.
Civil defence officers had already been deployed in several districts, Mr. Chandrasena said. They would be trained by wildlife officers and work around the clock.
“We requested the Defence Ministry to provide us with 2,500 officers to carry out maintenance of the electric fences and to provide assistance to wildlife officers to keep elephants away from farming areas and villages,” he said.
Mr. Chandrasena explained the fences were only one part of the new government’s plans: its major project was to connect wildlife parks and forestry areas and reserves through identified elephant corridors.
This, however, would take time as the government had to resettle 25,000 families.
The wildlife department is placing radio collars on elephants in selected herds to learn the paths used by elephants travelling between parks in order to determine the most effective elephant corridors.
Twenty elephants have so far been collared. “We plan to fit collars on another 20 elephants,” the department’s Elephant Conservation Unit deputy chief, Mr. U.L. Thaufeek, said.
The department’s Director-General, Mr. Chandana Sooriyabandara, said civil defence officers had been working on elephant fences for the past 10 years but in numbers too small to be effective.
“We had previously assigned one CDF officer for each 3km stretch of electric fence but we saw that the officers found it difficult to maintain such an amount of fencing so we will now deploy one officer for every 1km of fencing,” he said.
The department will build a new 1,200km of electric fencing.
The Director of the Environmental Conservation Trust, Sajeewa Chamikara, said he supported the government’s plans to connect parks, reserves and forestry reserves with elephant corridors as this would resolve most of the problems faced by the animals as they roamed in search of food and water.
Mr. Chamikara said while the maintenance of electric fences was important, biological barriers were also needed to stop elephants from coming up against fences and breaking them down. Citrus trees such as hana plants could be grown along the fences, he suggested.
About 350 elephants were found dead in the year to November 30, many of the deaths being caused as a result of coming into contact with human habitation.
Between December 6-10, three elephants were found dead in the Trincomalee area: one, in Gomarankadawala, had died after eating explosives (hakka patas) hidden in fruit that exploded in its mouth; another is believed to have suffered electrocution in the Kanniya Welgama Wehera area; the third, a female tusker found at Safi Nagar, had been shot.
Earlier in the year, a string of deaths were reported when herds crossing railway tracks at night collided with trains. Elephants have been found dead in parks with poison in their stomachs. Others, that had entered cultivated areas, had been shot dead, killed with hidden hakka patas, or died of electrocution when coming up against unauthorised electric fences.