The Elephant saga…………..

In Sri Lanka an elephant is not a rare thing to see. We have wild elephant’s as well tamed elephants that have ownership especially old rich families and temples. The new rich Sri Lankans it s good thing to have an at least baby elephant within their 60 -70 perches land in the middle of the city.it was a common practice during last  ten years and I have hear the sound of the baby elephant in Colombo 07,which is a high-end residential area in Sri Lanaka.

But if you really want to see wild elephants I suggest going Minneriya national park where you can at least 100-150 heard of elephants in dry season. Where you are really lucky you might see about 500-600 wild elephants in some occasion.Isn’t it amazing to see such large number of elephants in one place?

The Lonely Planet placed this amazing assembly of pachyderms as the 6th greatest animal spectacle in the world. 

As per the Mahavansa , the Sinhala chronicle Kandula is the most  famous war elephant .Some may known as “Kadol”

There are stories of Kandula same as Bucephalus when prince Dutugamunu was born, many items of value were said to have appeared spontaneously, which were found and brought in by various people as gifts to the newborn. Among them a fine elephant who was found by a fisherman named Kandula. 

The elephant was named for its finder and became the companion of Dutugamunu, serving as his mount during the wars that led to the unification of Sri Lanka.

There are so many stories of the bravery  of Kandula as a war elephant and how it fight with king Elara’s war elephant  Maha Pambata.

But King Dutugamunu did not named a city on behalf of Kandula as the great Alexander did  to his horse Bucephalus.

The Kandula being famous for fighting for humans.

 But the Panamure elephant is being famous for fighting for its own race.

 Capturing of wild elephants for trade, industry and cultural purposes had been an intricate part of the Sri Lanka over 2000 years. We have historical records of exporting tuskers and elephants to country as far as Rome and Greece through Muslim traders, a trade which was later adopted by the country’s colonial masters. But very recently in Sri Lankan at Galle face burnt massive number of illegal elephant tusks.

So that the   Kraals for elephants were widely practiced in Ancient Sri Lanka.The last Kraal was held nearly 60 years ago at Panamure. This is not a very old history, there are actual photographs of this Kraal and about 16 elephants were  captured .out of all elephants a brave elephant with magnificent size who admired the freedom rather being a slave to the human tried to break the fence of the Kraal. The Elephant fought for not only its liberty but also the others of the heard.

But this ended up shooting to the elephant. But it led to a public up rise and a red hot debate in the parliament which ultimately ended with the banning of elephant kraals in the country.

Panamure was a Kraal situated within the 99,000 acre forest land owned by Sir Francis Molamure.it had been a flourishing Kraal town since 1896, equipped with its own post office and police station and many businesses to accommodate the Kraal builder, elephant handlers, log cutters and many service men gathered to maintain this mammoth Kraal. 

But Panamure is a memory now. Gone are the elephants that roamed free in these jungles and the jungle itself. Just one or two of the upright post of the stockade are left and preserved in this town as historical mementos and they stand in mute testimony of an event that changed the fate of Sri Lankan elephants sixty years ago.

Instead of elephant Kraal now we have elephant orphanages.it s sad to hear this mammoth creature being an orphan in this country. The reason is rapid growing population took their forest and elephants were orphans without free lands to inhabit. If anyone visiting to Sri Lanka PinnaWala elephant orphanage will be a worth place to visit.

The other place Belongs to Udawalawa National Park. The Udawalawa “Ath Athuru sewana “where we can adopt a baby elephant and spend the expense to look after the baby elephant. But the little fellow belongs to the forest and it will stay in the national park. That’s a nice concept and there are many of my friends have adopted baby elephants.

But it’s strange some of  Sri Lankans  really wanted to have a baby elephant keeping at their garden instead at  a pet.Politicians ,magistrates judges  and  some monks enjoyed keeping  baby elephant at their home. Some very lucky children got a baby elephant as their birthday presents …!

Capturing wild elephant is illegal, although many people own domesticated elephants under special permits, as a symbol of wealth and power.

The sad part is people pretend so innocent even they know what they have done.

The saffron-robed monk told to reporters that he had found the two-year-old elephant abandoned at his temple in Colombo in 2014.

“I did not capture the elephant, it was left at my temple,” he said.

Wildlife officials say it is extremely rare to find a stray baby elephant in the wild. The hard truth is poachers usually kill the mother to snatch the young, which can fetch over 10 million rupees ($70,000).

Defiantly this monk does not follow Buddhism. I can be very sure about it.

However the elephant survey in August 2011 showed the country had nearly 7,000 elephants living in the wild, including about 1,100 babies. I don’t know what the exact figures are in 2016.