Abstract
Asian elephants are ‘endangered’ but come into significant conflict with humans. Sri Lanka holds an important position in relation to Asian elephants, both in terms of species conservation and human-elephant conflict mitigation. Historical aspects of the two main conservation agencies and lack of coordination between them has prevented a landscape level holistic approach to conservation in general and elephants in particular. The primary objective of elephant management is human-elephant conflict mitigation and secondarily elephant conservation. Many human-elephant conflict mitigation activities are ineffective and in some cases cause its escalation and wider spread. Others are extremely detrimental to elephant conservation. Effective human-elephant conflict mitigation and elephant conservation requires a paradigm change. Elephant management needs to be based on science and evidence rather than outdated beliefs and false assumptions. Unless immediate and effective remedial measures are taken, human-elephant conflict will continue to escalate and the elephant population continue to decline. Ceylon Journal of Science (Bio. Sci.) 44 (1) : 1-11, 2015
Highlights
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) once existed across south and south-east Asia from Iraq in the west, Himalayan foothills in the north and China in the east, together with four island populations in Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra and Borneo (Fernando & Leimgruber 2011)
Given that the main threat to Asian elephants across the range is human-elephant conflict (HEC) (Fernando & Pastorini 2011), the conservation of elephants and mitigation of HEC in Sri Lanka and its successes and failures are of great relevance to the management of elephants worldwide
The main activities conducted for HEC mitigation and elephant conservation in Sri Lanka are translocation by capture-transport, elephant drives, distribution of elephant thunder crackers, construction of electric fences and law enforcement
Summary
Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) once existed across south and south-east Asia from Iraq in the west, Himalayan foothills in the north and China in the east, together with four island populations in Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra and Borneo (Fernando & Leimgruber 2011). Given that the main threat to Asian elephants across the range is HEC (Fernando & Pastorini 2011), the conservation of elephants and mitigation of HEC in Sri Lanka and its successes and failures are of great relevance to the management of elephants worldwide. This fact is yet to be accepted and the management of elephants continues to be largely based on limiting them to Wildlife Department areas.
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