Elephant locations in Sri Lanka

82 locations has kept elephants in Sri Lanka

There is presently 254 (99,113) living elephants in locations in Sri Lanka (in this database)

Region:

Sri Lanka is in this database included in asia

Wild elephants:

Sri Lanka has about 5879 (min. 5879, max. 5879) wild elephants. Source:Fernando et al. (2011)

Location holdings:

82 locations has kept 344 elephants in Sri Lanka

(Database tables with collection of elephants further down on the page)

Elephants in locations

254 (99,113) living

90 (47,21) dead

Sex ratio and
Management:

Male

99 / 254

39%

Female

113 / 254

44%

Free contact

154 / 254

61%

Protected contact

0 / 254

No contact

0 / 254

Unknown contact

3 / 254

wild

89 / 254

35%

Sri Lanka is an island with a land area of approximately 62,000 km2 situated in the Indian Ocean, 35 km from the southern end of the Indian Peninsula.

In Sri Lanka nearly 120 wild elephants are killed by humans and in return about 65 people die after being attacked by elephants every year. Man-elephant conflicts are the major cause for the elephant killings whilst a number of elephants were run over by trains accidentally. In some other cases elephants were killed as they fell in man-made structures like farming wells.

2004: In 2004 a rare albino elephant was spotted roaming Sri Lankas Ruhunu National Park, the first recorded sighting in the country.

2011: The first-ever nationwide elephant census in August 2011 produced a total of 7,379 jumbos across the island: 5,879 of them were spotted near parks and sanctuaries, while another 1,500 were estimated to be living in other areas. (Earlier 2 000-3 000, Santiapillai, IUCN1996, SUKUMAR 2008)

Captive elephants

1946: In 1946 Sri Lanka was said to have 736 elephants in captivity (Santiapillai and de Silva, 1994)

1955: there were said to still be 670 elephants (Deraniyagala, 1955).

1967: census conducted by the University of Peradeniya and the Smithsonian Elephant Research Programme showed 532 elephants, with two owned by government and the remaining 530 in private hands (Jayasinghe and Jainudeen, 1970). In the early 1980s a census conducted by the DWLC listed 344 elephants, including 29 tuskers and 154 mukhnas (Anon., 1982d); but A.B. Fernando, who handed the mimeographed single page to the author, estimated that about 10% were uncounted, the addition of which would give about 380 elephants (A.B. Fernando, 1988).

Reference list

Koehl, D., Facts about elephants in Sri Lanka. Elephant Encyclopedia, (2020) available online retrieved at https://www.elephant.se/country.php?name=Sri Lanka. (archived at the Wayback machine)

Sources, among others

Current status of Asian elephants in Sri Lanka, by Fernando et al. (2011), http://www.asesg.org/gajah35.htm">Gajah nr 35, 2012. (Journal of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group)
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC774E/ac774e0g.htm">FAO: elephants in Sri Lanka
https://www.nature.com/news/linnaeus-s-asian-elephant-was-wrong-species-1.14063
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/51-27295-news-detail-pinnawala-zoo-ready-by-end-2013.html
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=51569
http://www.dailymirror.lk/print/index.php/news/provincial-news/25377.html
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/10/elephant_pharyngeal_pouches.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink
http://www.eturbonews.com/17761/revisiting-gathering-elephants-minneriya-national-park
https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1869.tb07303.x
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/AC774E/ac774e0g.htm
http://www.sfltimes.com/news/human-elephant-conflict-soars-in-sri-lanka-green-activists-blame-habitat-loss

Internal relevant links

Name

Elephant collection

Type

Place

District

Province

State

Region

P.R. Karunarathna
Kept totally 1 elephants