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by Derrick Schokman

The question of whether buffaloes can be a problem in wildlife parks cropped up in April 2002 when we visited the Ruhuna National Park or Yala and were disappointed with what we saw in the way of elephants and deer.

This park is noted for a stable elephant population and large herds of spotted deer in the open plains, but all we saw that afternoon was one lone bull elephant and three or four deer around an almost dried up water hole.

At first we put this down to the severe drought that had burned the grass a sienna brown and dried up several of the water holes.

Elephants are best seen in the plains in the early morning and late afternoon feeding on the grass. The Smithsonian Institute which carried out a study of elephant behaviour and ecology in the late 1960s and early 1970s, found elephants to spend as much as 80 percent of their time in this park on the short grasses in the plains.

Elephant activity in the short grass covers was highest during on rainy season. In the first half of the rainy season up to the end of February they tend to "scalp" the sod which takes three months or more to recover.

This could possibly have been the reason why we saw only one elephant and a few deer - their grass feed having been seriously restricted owing to the drought.

But then we noticed that there were plenty of water buffalo in and around the water holes and lakes, making the most use of what little grass and water was left. And then it struck us that the buffalo has been the centre of discussion as a problem to both elephants and deer in the park.

There are thousands of feral buffaloes - domesticated buffaloes that have gone wild. Although they are called wild, the existence of a wild genome in them is most doubtful.

The centres of buffalo population in the dry zone today are the very areas which were populated by agricultural communities from the 3rd century BC to the 13th century AD. The main occupation of those communities was rice farming where the buffalo had a major role to play in land preparation, threshing and transport.

The so-called wild buffaloes in the dry zone national wildlife parks today are in all probability the descendants of those who went wild after the dry zone civilization collapsed in the 13th century, their numbers being added to as more domesticated buffaloes from peripheral villages strayed into the parks.

As these animals have no predators their numbers have expanded considerably. A check on such expansion as was done on previous occasions by capture for agriculture and domestic purposes has been stopped.

As a result these buffalo may have become a problem competing with the elephant and deer for water and grass. Yala is in the arid zone where it rains only once a year and that too for a very short period. During the last eight months of the year water is restricted to a few water holes and small "tanks" for drinking.

If the buffaloes use the water only for drinking it would not matter so much. But they spend the greater part of their time in the water when not grazing. This means that what's left of the water becomes muddy and unfit for drinking.

It was the considered view of the Smithsonian elephant survey that elephants left Yala in the dry season because of the presence of buffaloes in the water holes and the absence of clear drinking water.

This appears to be the problem in the Wasgamuwa National Park as well, where the so-called wild buffalo population is said to be between 5,000 and 10,000, competing with elephants for their requirements. A consultancy group has consequently recommended that their numbers be kept in check by removing about 10 per cent of them every year. Whether this will be done is a moot point. I remember a former Director of Wildlife Conservation also recommending such action in respect of Yala, although I don't think any action was taken. Park officers at that time (early 1970s) estimated the feral buffalo population in blocks 1, 2 and 3 of the Ruhuna National Park to be around 15,000.

May be competition from buffaloes for grazing and drinking water could also be responsible for the dwindling number of deer in Yala. It's only a thought, but one cannot forget that the same thing is said to have happened in the Bagura plain north of the Ruhuna National Park, which once teemed with deer but subsequently came to be occupied exclusively by buffalo.

Anyway here's hoping that we are wrong in thinking this way, and that we will be luckier when we visit Yala again sometime between December and March after the rains have resurrected the grass and water holes.

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