Sri Lanka: Rangers and Veterinarian Crews are Heroes without Praise

79 Wildlife Officers have sacrificed their lives while on duty. For years, when a local official pushed the wildlife department to relocate a "problem" elephant, the immediate solution would come in the form a a team of 2 veterinarians, 15 rangers, a truck, and a tractor. Leaders in the Wildlife Department admit that they operate ad hoc, they only have time and resources to respond to unrelenting crisis's. The special veterinarian teams constantly put themselves at great risk, as they track, dart and load the elephant and haul him (they are all bulls), 200 KMs away. Like the details of the attached article, I've (Philip) had many ranger and veterinarian friends be injured and even killed in doing this work. One friend was trampled this year, and I'll tell his story soon.

The ranger's heroic efforts at translocating elephants yields poor results, and even then are only temporary. How frustrating for the rangers and attending veterinarians when only days after a translocation they learn that the elephants had returned home! Thru a Smithsonian-funded radio collaring program completed several years ago it was learned that nearly 80 percent of translocated elephants had caused death, injury and destruction to farms and villages as they attempt to return home. Nearly all of these elephants are killed by villagers within the first year of translocation.

We need to stop crisis management, and this ad hoc approach and be smart. Solutions are available and we at SavingGanesh.org have constantly provided perspective and solutions that a rotating band of politicians and their appointed Ministers don't want to hear. These uneducated administrators are the boss - able to direct the Wildlife Department into taking unwise actions….over and over again.

At the end of the day, it is the politicians that should be held responsible for the death of these dedicated professional rangers.