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.
