The Broken Elephant Corridors of Udawalawe, Sri Lanka

Thank you to All that have offered current or past support of SavingGanesh.org! Raising funds and finding volunteers to continue our work was nearly impossible these past 2 years. We are excited that our core crew has recently arrived in Sri Lanka and we are so grateful to be enabled to recommence our work!

We've met with the Director of Wildlife Health and caught up with the challenges facing elephants from the governmental perspective. Next, we met with multiple local conservationists to learn from their unique insight.

Most important, we've reassembled our core field crew.

We began our fieldwork by conducting multiple drone overflights of the critical Dahaiyagala elephant corridor. This narrow thread of remaining greenery connects Udawalawe National Park with the essential seasonal feeding grounds in the central highlands (hill country) of Sri Lanka. During the Covid shutdown, the pace of deforestation and presence of land squatters accelerated. We are in the midst of preparing a media storm to blast out to the public, forcing the government to recognize the importance of the issue and take actions against the corridor interlopers. Unfortunately, although illegal, several operations were given a green light from politicians. This must stop, the land must be rewilded and reparation made!

Why this is important: the Udawalawe elephant population has been studied by our collaborator, Dr. De Silva and over 1000 individual elephants were identified. Yet, in only 3 years, the numbers dwindled and recently only about 250 have been spotted in the park. They are essentially trapped; only bull elephants are brave enough to traverse the corridor. Those 250 were extremely emaciated last dry season, as fodder in Udawalawe is commonly scarce during that time. Invasive plant species are also choking out palatable fodder that the elephants depend. It is currently the end of the wet monsoonal cycle and the elephants should be plump and ready for the lean times ahead. They are not! This will be a season of horrific consequences for these herds. A pressing consideration will be - do we support the wildlife department if they choose to give supplemental feed, or is this disruption of nature too much? Will the wild elephants lose the "wild" and become dependent on human intervention?

We must repair the recently broken corridor to make this all a moot point.

It won't happen without us conservationists putting the appropriate pressure upon the powers that be.

Also, what of the missing 750 elephants?

Remember - there's only an estimated 4000 of the Sri Lankan elephant subspecies left in the wild.

Our second priority since our post-Covid return is the investigation of increased human/elephant conflict resulting from the recent habitat loss at The Great Elephant Gathering of Asia. A new film and related articles for publication will be produced.

Please note that SavingGanesh.org is the sole international NGO here in Sri Lanka that is solely devoted to the elephants.

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Thank you again for supporting the elephants of Asia and for your trust in us.