Isuru Jayasundara
Sri Lankan elephant (Elephas maximus maximus ) is considered as a major endangered species and their survival in the natural habitat is threatened due to expansion of various human informal activities. Therefore the human and elephant conflict is increasing and as a result of that elephants in natural forests are constantly being destroyed and baby elephants become orphaned or abandoned.
Elephant Transit Home (Eth Athuru Sevena) is an elephant orphanage maintained by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) for protecting the orphaned baby elephants in Sri Lanka. This has been established in 1995 in Udawalawa National Park. Main purpose of this ETH (Elephant Transit Home) is taking care of orphaned baby elephants until they become young and release them into their natural habitat.
When a small elephants become abandoned or orphaned, it is difficult them to survive in their natural habitats, because of some carnivorous animals. On the other hand they may face many problems such as falling into abandoned pits and malnutrition. But if the herd is with them, adults in the herd try to save calves from dangerous incidents. If smalls can not escape from these troubles even with the help of adults, they get orphaned. Sometimes the baby elephant can be orphaned after its mother’s death. (This mostly happens, because of human activities, such as killing elephants)
DWC has to pay attention to provide shelter to the orphaned baby elephants and maintain them in good health condition. After living about 4 1/2 years of time they are released to the forest. All released elephants are then monitored for three years. Therefore this makes further conserve of our elephants. Actually this is a kind of ex-situ conservation method to conserve several genotypes of elephants found in different places of the country. Through this the production of improved novel genetic combinations is also provoked. In addition to that regular awareness programmes on elephants are also conducted in these premises.
Government has to make sound allocations to improve the facilities of ETH and for its maintenance. Therefore DWC has decided to seek private sector assistance. Launching a Foster Parent Scheme for baby elephants is one of such efforts. DWC is facing some problems in releasing the elephants to forests. Udawalawa National Park is highly suitable as it is enriched with food and covered by an Electric fence. But nearly fifty elephants have been released to this park up to now. As Udawalawa National Park is not very large, DWC will have to search another area for future uses. But most of parks do not have the environmental conditions like in Udawalawa national Park. In addition, there are some problems in monitoring or released animals.
ETH is doing a great work to conserve our elephants. We too must promote greater awareness and pay a hefty price to conserve this priceless ecological jewel for the benefit of our future generation.
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