Kenyan elephant researchers to study Minneriya-Kaudulla herds
Walter JAYAWARDHANA
Kenya’s world famous Amboseli Elephant researchers led by Nairobi
based Elephant conservationist Dr. Joyce Poole of 26 years experience
will team up with local experts like Manori Gunawardena to start a long
standing study of Asian Elephants along the lines of the African project
focusing on the Minneriya-Kaudulla Wewa elephant population.
“We’re starting - in Minneriya-Kaudulla we believe it is urgent and
are willing to go for it. Together with Manori we will develop and
maintain a long-term study of social behaviour and demography of the
Minneriya-Kaudulla elephant population along the lines of the Amboseli
study - naturally with a special focus on communication (aong
elephants)”, the Amboseli researches said.
The Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) is a programme of the
Amboseli Trust for Elephants, and is world renowned as the longest and
most detailed study of free-living African elephants.
Over the past three decades, AERP has identified more than 2,400
individual elephants, named and numbered them and detailed their life
histories. Dr. Poole began her elephant career in Amboseli in 1975. She
worked part-time as Research Director of the ATE/AERP from 2002 to 2007.
It was based in the Amboseli National Wild life Park in Kenya.
Amboseli researchers said Gunawardena, wanted to study Asian
elephant’s social behaviour with them. She has many years of experience
working in Yala with the elephant research group there as well as doing
conservation work in both India and Sri Lanka - moving elephants and
looking into landscape and corridor issues - but her true love is social
behaviour and she has wanted to start a project along the lines of
Amboseli for many years.
The African researchers said although the human-elephant conflict is
more significant in Asia, elephants in Asia benefit from the historic
and cultural identity its people have with them.
“Visitors to Sri Lanka’s national parks are predominantly country
nationals. Our Minneriya-Kaudulla Elephant Project will capitalise on
this cultural identity with elephants by encouraging the public to
participate in the study and by contributing educational material toward
a special elephant programme developed for schools.
Making the project’s elephant ID database accessible online and
stimulating local people and national park visitors to become familiar
with individual elephants, to photograph them and to send in behavioral
and geographical information, we aim to give people a sense of ownership
and a connection with individual wild elephants.
This exchange of information will provide the project with vital
information about associations, behaviour, habitat use and areas of
conflict, while simultaneously inspiring wonder in the behaviour and
voices of elephants thus increasing understanding and decreasing
conflict”, they commented.
The Ambosoli conservationists said: “Together with Manori, we will
develop and maintain a long-term study of social behaviour and
demography of the Minneriya-Kaudulla elephant population along the lines
of the Amboseli study - naturally with a special focus on communication.
We think that such a study - that uses the individual recognition
approach - will benefit conservation and welfare of Asian elephants and
is long overdue. And our involvement in this project will allow us to
speak with more authority for both species. We will spend about a month
a year in Minneriya and we are very excited about it! We’ll continue our
Amboseli work as well.”
The Ambosoli project researchers noted: “We are currently rebuilding
Elephant Voices to include our new outlook and so that we can finally
host more of our vocalisation-related work (audio) - which will now
include both species”.
Human-elephant conflict costs lives
At least two people and an elephant have
died in the human-elephant conflict prevalent in north
central and eastern areas, police said.
Police said a 45-year-old man was killed
as a result of being attacked by a wild elephant at Sigiriya.
The man was attacked at around 8 p.m. on Monday while
returning home. In the nearby Digampathaha area, another man
was attacked by a wild elephant earlier on Monday and died,
police said, adding that in Kantalai, a woman was accused of
firing at a wild elephant and killing it on Monday.
Xinhua
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