A Captured Wild Elephant

Sept. 16, 2003 — Elephant safaris in Africa and the need to capture Asian elephants in order to save them will be on the agenda when experts meet in the Sri Lanka capital this week to discuss conservation.

Sri Lanka hopes to focus attention on its own problems with the huge animals.

The Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust, a co-organizer of the symposium on "human elephant relationships and conflicts," said 60 papers would be discussed.

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Experts from the United States, Africa, Australia, Asia and Europe will thrash out their conservation theories during the three-day conference, which begins on Friday, Sept. 19.

"In countries such as South Africa and Mozambique, there are those who argue that there are too many elephants and that there should be a cull," said Jayantha Jayewardene, the managing trustee of Biodiversity Trust.

"There is one paper arguing a case for opening African herds to game hunters. The suggestion is to use the proceeds for conservation elsewhere," Jayewardene said.

The wild elephant population in the African continent is estimated at more than 600,000 while in Asia the number was believed to be 35,000 to 40,000.

Unlike Asian elephants, both male and female elephants in Africa have tusks and therefore fall prey to ivory poachers, Jayewardene said.

Also figuring on the agenda are pressures from the ivory lobby and the problems some Asian farmers face as they are in direct competition with wild elephants in the same habitat.

In Sri Lanka, an estimated 120 elephants meet with violent deaths at the hands of rural farmers each year while about 50 to 60 people are also killed by marauding elephants.

"We can easily identify the rogue elephants and capture them rather than allow farmers to kill them," Jayewardene said. "This way, we can address the problem of a shortage of domesticated elephants at temples."

Last month, Sri Lanka asked India to supply 10 tuskers to bridge an acute shortage of tamed elephants used in Buddhist temple pageants.

"There is an acute shortage of domesticated elephants because of the government's policy of not allowing the capture of wild elephants," an environment ministry spokesman said.

Elephants are a protected species and highly venerated by the Buddhist majority in the island. They are also considered a national treasure and it is an offence to capture wild elephants.

The issue of elephant shortage is taken so seriously that President Chandrika Kumaratunga last month announced she had appointed a committee of officials to look into it.

Kumaratunga said there was only 180 tamed elephants on the island and 80 percent of them were over the age of 60.

Sri Lanka's wild elephant population is also said to be fast dwindling. Current estimates place the number at under 3,500.