LANKAN DIARY - 2

DROUGHT AND ELEPHANTS

Holding sketchy itinerary in hand, I was just trying to figure out the alternative sightseeing for the day. Though Sigiriya was on the list, I could not expect the three senior citizens, who have crossed 70, to climb 600 plus meter rock with me.
Though the itinerary mentioned about Habarana, no detail was available. All it said was that we had to pay for entry of Sigirya rock and wildlife safari. I just asked driver Lalu about Habarana and he just said you can see elephants. I mistook it for Pinnawala elephant orphanage and all four of us are against such centers.
Chinnappa had already told me that they would like to see Sigirya rock from outside, but would not climb it. Nor Radha aunty and Prasad were interested in it. That left us with Rangiri cave temple, known as Dambulla cave temple for the day.
At Sigiriya, Lalu was of little help to take us near the rock. I realized that the entry fee was from the main road itself and we could not have proper view of the rock from main gate. It would have been waste of Rs 3000 per head (Sri Lanka currency), if we went closer. We just took a look at the rock from a distance.
I again asked Lalu about Habarana. He told me that it was not elephant orphanage, but a wildlife sanctuary with a lot of elephants. This enthused other three also and we decided to take a shot in daytime itself.
Though Lalu offered to look for a safari jeep, I walked into a nearby resort and fixed it by myself. The driver was young and looked dynamic. I learned that we were visiting Minneriya National Park, which had large congregation of elephants. It was almost an hour drive from Sigiriya and later I realized that we could have gone to Habarana and rented a safari jeep from there. Lalu saved that much of fuel for himself.
On the way, we were discussing about variety of issues. A keen observer, Chinnappa had noticed insulated power lines being drawn near Sigiriya and inquired technical details with Prasad, an engineer and once owned electrical components manufacturing units. The discussion also turned towards solar fencing to prevent elephants, which was done in a much better manner in Sri Lanka, compared to India by forest department.
I was noticing large tracts of lush green open lands and wondered if they were part of any marsh land. Chinnappa had already noticed that and made inquires about it in my absence. ``Like Karnataka, even Sri Lanka is reeling under drought. These are all paddy lands and the people have not cultivated paddy for last two years,’’ he said.
Sri Lanka witness dry season between June and September. We could see mango trees either flowering or bearing fruits. There seems to be some early rain in recent past, which had turned land green. After some distance, I realized that the large land by the side of the road could be a dry lake. A potential conflict zone with such large number of elephants, I thought.
Minneriya is similar to Kabini and Periyar is India. It is adjacent to backwaters of Minneriya reservoir build by local king Mahasena in 3rd century. There is a lot of backwater and fresh grass grows in the backwater area, where elephants graze. Due to rain failure, the extent of backwater had receded, creating a large tract of grassland. During British era, two railway lanes were drawn in heavily wooded area, fragmenting the habitat.
As we entered the park, first 20 minutes had thick vegetation, with undergrowth. Slowly we emerged to large grassland and there stood an elephant, just 100 meters from us. It was a male and to our right, at far end, another single elephant was grazing. We passed by the first one and drove more than two kilometers to reach the second one. That was also male.
``This is also macana (male without tusks),’’ I said.
``In Sri Lanka, there are no tuskers. Most of the males are macanas,’’ he said. First I thought that it was either genetical disorder. But, it was during Tamil Ealam movement that the elephants suffered a lot. Elephant tusks were one of the resource mobilization ways of LTTE. Most of the tuskers were poached and the tusks were sold in international market to raise funds. This left the country with tusk less elephants.
The day was hot and the sun was really bright. We were happy about seeing two wild elephants in Sri Lanka. We thought that we were early in the day to see elephants and they would not come out of shade in such humid conditions. However, Chinnappa asked the driver to take near backwater, which we could not see from the place where we were driving.
After ten minutes of drive, the jeep took a slight left turn, which opened to back water sight. ``Wow,’’ exclaimed I and Prasad simultaneously. There were at least 50 elephants, in five or six groups. I could see little ones in almost every group. Prasad has been visiting Kabini since 70’s and said that it was reminding him of those days. At the end, we had counted around 80 elephants.
Now, there were elephants all around us. I was not in hurry and I could turn any direction and take photos. Contrary to our belief, there were two small elephants, sporting tusks. However, their body growth was not proportionate to the tusk growth, which was disappointing. But, the experience of having elephants all around was great.
Though Minneriya had largest elephant congregation in one place, the problem in the fringes of the forest is similar to Indian one. There are two railway lanes passing inside the forest. In fringes, due to drought, farmers have given up water intensive cultivation. However, the elephants raid whatever vegetables and fruits they grow. This has increased man-elephant conflict. They also break solar fencing in some places to raid crops.
Despite of problems, I felt Sri Lanka forest department was doing much better work than our own forest department. They have not meddled with forests much and appear to be practicing good fire control methods. Consequently, the local species of plants are naturally fighting lantana menace all by themselves and not allowed them to take over as undergrowth. More importantly, the Sri Lankan forest officials have restrained themselves from taking up construction of culverts, storm water drains and other civil works inside wildlife area.