Unique Sri Lankan Elephant Facts

Elephants are a species of most interesting animals in the world which are the largest terrestrial animals on the earth. There are lots of marvelous elephant facts that are elephant lovers should get to know. This write-up will provide a considerable amount of sri lankan elephant facts

Body characteristics in the area of Sri Lankan Elephant facts

Elephants are the largest terrestrial animals on the earth and there are only two species are left in the present. Those species are African elephants and Asian elephants. Asian elephants are smaller than African elephants in size. They differ from many other features like size of years, density of the skin, content of the meal, etc. but all the elephants are herbivores. Asian elephants are again divided in to three subspecies which are Indian elephants, Sri Lankan elephants and Sumatran elephants. Sumatran elephants are the smallest elephants among those subspecies. Sri Lankan elephants are the largest ones and they are closely related to Indian elephants.

Sri Lankan Elephant facts about the Diet of an Elephant

Sri Lankanelephant is considered to be the largest subspecies because of having the best shoulder height of 2m to 3.5m. They are 2000kg to 5000kg in weight. When it comes to the skin color the Sri Lankan elephants are the ones who are having the darkest skin. Also distinct patches of depigmentation can be seen on ears, trunk and face. The female elephants are usually smaller than the male and only males bear tusks.

The southwest part of Sri Lanka is known as the wet zone and most of the elephants live this area in mature forests. In the past the density of elephants were 0.1 – 0.2 elephants per km² and there were around  6000 – 12000 of elephants in Sri Lanka. It is considered that Sri Lanka has the highest density of elephant population in Asia. With the population growth of humans the elephant population has been restricted to the dry zone in Sri Lanka. Most of them are living in yala national park, wilpaththu national park, udawalawe national park and lunugamwehera national park. Some of them lives in non-protected areas.

Since elephants are megaherbivores they need normally about 150kg of grass per day to survive because they have a large body to maintain. They usually spend more than two third of a day for feeding. In addition to grass Sri Lankan elephants depend on tree barks, roots and stems in their diet. Not only food but also water is critical fact for an elephant’s life. At least once a day they need to drink water and therefore normally elephants do not go far away from a good food and water sources.

Sri Lankan Elephant facts on migration habits’ of an Elephant

One of the most considerable sri lankan elephant facts about Asian elephants is the conflict between elephants and humans. Even if Asia has been the area with highest density of elephant population now it has been changing due to the higher rate of population growth of humans and the habitat loss of elephants due to civilization of humans in the areas where elephants have lived once before. Due to loosing of habitats elephant population has been fragmented and populations of wild elephants are now mostly small. Although losing habitats leads wild elephants to become more aggressive. The ranges of the forests where elephants live have been cleared for crop cultivation by farmers. Because of these farmlands are in the areas where wild elephants used to roam daily, they attack crop fields and damage cultivated crops. Also people are losing their lives by attacks of wild elephants. In Sri Lanka, approximately 50 people are killed by wild elephant attacks in each year. This has been a huge problem to humans and they veer to kill elephants to defend their lives. Landmines and gun shootings has been a massive threat to wild elephants since past. Farmers build trap guns for elephants to protect their crops. ‘hakka patas’ is another type of threat which is a small mine cause shatter of the jaws on being bitten because of the pressure. Farmers conceal these mines in fruits or vegetables. After-ward the war in north and east parts in Sri Lanka, many deaths and injuries of elephants were reported due to landmines. In some areas where wild elephants are a huge problem to human lives electrified fences are made along the margin of forests to avoid the migration of elephants to villages. Not only in this case, wild tuskers were rapidly killed for taking ivory in the past. It is now strictly prohibited in Sri Lanka but still some trades in ivory goes on. Unawareness of humans is also responsible for elephant deaths.  Farmers have large wells in their croplands which are used for irrigation and most of their edges are not covered with safety fences. Elephants fall down into these wells and die pathetically after suffering. Trains which are running through the areas crosses elephants’ paths also cause damages to elephants. Mostly at night elephants strike on running trains.

There is a place at pinnawala near to kegalle town in sabaragamuwa province where taking care of orphaned wild elephants. It is also used as a captive breeding ground and is considered as the largest captive elephant herd. The personnel in this orphanage bring young elephants found in the forest which are wounded, abandoned from their mothers, lost their herds, fallen in to pits and feed, nurse and keep them in captivity until they get better. This helps to slower the depletion of elephant population in the country to some extent.

The Zoological garden and Sri Lankan Elephant facts

Another very special elephant fact that elephant  is considered as a flag species in Sri Lanka. Elephants are used in traditional rituals such as in perahera functions in a very prestigious form. Especially in dalada perahera in Kandy a giant mature and calm elephant with a fulgent figure is used to carry the sacred tooth relic of Lord Buddha along the streets annually to show it to devotees. People think that this opportunity is a fortune for that elephant and they treat it with honor. However since the human-elephant conflict the number of wild elephants in the country is decreasing rapidly because of habitat loss and other human activities. Therefore effective conservation strategies for elephants must be made. Currently the common conservation strategy used in Sri Lanka as well as in other Asian countries is to mitigate the human-elephant conflict and limit the elephant population to protected areas using boundaries such as electric fences. Elephants in other unprotected areas can be translocated  to these area. But this strategy is not much effective because elephants usually need roam in a wide area of land and when the population density in a particular area becomes high they try to outrun the limits. Therefore managing elephants outside of protected areas but together with protected areas is considered to be more effective and harmless for both elephants and humans.i think know you have some idea sri lankan elephant facts.

source  - elephantfacts.com