19 October 2019 | New Scientist | 35>MICHELE BURGESS / ALAMYProblem
elephants in
Sri Lanka are
often relocated
to parksprevious reincarnations. Hinduism, Sri Lanka’s
second largest religion, also enjoys a close
association with the animals in the form of the
god Ganesh. “Elephants hold a very special
place in our hearts,” says Prithiviraj Fernando,
chairman of the Centre for Conservation
and Research in Tissamaharama.
Yet as the island grows increasingly
crowded and their habitat disappears, the
lives of elephants and humans are overlapping
more and more. This puts Sri Lanka’s many
farmers at constant odds with the animals,
often with deadly consequences.
Hungry elephants raid crops, trampling
fields and sometimes people. In response,
farmers attack the animals with flaming
torches, firecrackers, home-made guns and
even explosives embedded in fruit, known as
hakka patas or “jaw exploders”. Last year, more
than 300 elephants were killed in altercations
with humans and around 70 people lost their
lives to elephants. “Sri Lanka has the highest
level of human-elephant conflict in the world,”
says Fernando. “Wherever there are people
and elephants, there’s conflict.”
For more than 70 years, Sri Lanka has
attempted to solve the problem by moving
elephants to national parks. According to the
government’s approach, the world’s second-
largest land animal belongs in protected areas
surrounded by electric fencing, while people
belong everywhere else. In many cases, as with
Brigadier, problem animals are specifically
targeted for translocation. Officials also
attempt to clear whole herds using a colonial-
era tactic called an elephant drive. Day afterday, sometimes for a year or more, hundreds
of people venture into elephant territory,
setting off guns and thousands of “elephant
thunders” (a type of huge firecracker) to
corral the animals into fenced areas.
Whichever method officials use to try
to confine elephants to parks, it doesn’t work.
In 2012, Fernando and his colleagues published
a study showing that of 16 translocated bull
elephants that the researchers had monitored
over several years, two were killed within
the park they were released in and none of
the others stayed put. Some broke out and
returned home while others established
a new territory where they began raiding
crops again.
Elephant drives produce similar results.
Many males evade the round-up or break