The wildlife in Sri Lanka is various and
extraordinary. But it’s the elephant that,
for 2,000 years, has deined this country;
ever-present in its art, its architecture, its
religious symbolism — but, three days in, I’m
yet to see a single specimen in the lesh.The gathering
On the fourth day, that changes in one
glorious fell swoop. It’s late aternoon as we
drive through dry evergreen forest into the
heart of Minneriya National Park. Beside me
in our four-wheel-drive vehicle is Prithiviraj
Fernando — known simply as ‘The Doctor’
— a man who’s devoted his life to studying
elephants. “My father insisted I should be a
medical doctor,” he admits, “and so I took all
the qualiications and joined a hospital. But
I gave it up at the end of my very irst day. For
me, it had to be elephants.”
The forest thins and we reach a steep
bank that drops to a shallow river. Our
driver coaxes the vehicle over the bank,
the wheels skidding down the slope, before
accelerating iercely through the water and
lurching up the side. As we emerge, I’m so
preoccupied with checking that my illings
are still in place that it takes a nudge from
The Doctor to alert me to the scene ahead.
Opening before us is a grassy plain
wrapping around the edge of an enormous
lake, and on the plain are 40 — maybe 50
— elephants. There are solitary elephantsand elephants in groups, elephants tugging
up tuts of grass to eat and elephants cooling
themselves in the shallows. They call it
‘The Gathering’. From February — as the
climate becomes drier and the waters recede
elsewhere — the animals start coming
each evening to the shore of the Minneriya
Reservoir. And they keep on coming. “By
July, there’ll be 150 elephants here, and in
September, 300,” says The Doctor. “The whole
plain gets covered with them.” This is surely
one of the planet’s great wildlife spectacles,
but few people seem to have heard of it.
We watch a pair of babies tussle and chase
each other around their mothers. One of
them trips over a tussock and tumbles onto
its back, legs akimbo, before clambering
hastily to its feet and trying to look digniied.
All the while, as we’ve been absorbed by this
cameo, an adult female with a hairy lower
lip has moved slowly towards us, innocently,
never looking exactly in our direction, but
sidling, as if the juiciest cuts of grass have
happened to pull her our way. Suddenly, she
abandons the pretence and runs towards
the vehicle, and our driver has to hurry the
vehicle into gear and make a speedy retreat.
It’s an incident to suggest all isn’t quite as
it seems in this peaceful place. Beneath the
calm, currents are swirling, and occasionally
they break the surface in a lurry of
whitewater. “A few elephants can be a bit
aggressive,” The Doctor explains.We watch a pair
of babies tussle
and chase each
other around
their mothers.
One of them trips
over a tussock and
tumbles onto its
back, legs akimbo,
before clambering
hastily to its feet
and trying to
look dignifiedCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
Elephants approaching a lake;
conservationist Prithiviraj Fernando,
known as ‘The Doctor’; and a family of
IMAGES: GETTY; CHITRAL JAYATILAKEelephants, all in Minneriya National Park
March 2020 95SRI LANKA