Elephant sanctuaries to keep marauding wild elephants at bay

Nimal Wijesinghe - Anuradhapura additional district group correspondent

The Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC) will establish a network of elephant sanctuaries for stubborn wild elephants, tuskers and orphaned baby elephants to keep them under safe custody.

According to Agrarian Services and Wildlife Minister S M Chandrasena, under this programme these sanctuaries will be started in Horowpothana, Maduroya and Weheragala areas. One such sanctuary would come up on 3,000 acres with a reinforced protective fence installed around the proposed landscape.

The special feature of the project will be, every such sanctuary will have 1,000 acres of land for cultivating food varieties for elephants. The farmers within close proximity to the sanctuaries will be facilitated to grow elephants' food which would be purchased by the Department.

Minister Chandrasena hopes that the new project would assist in bringing down the increasing human-elephant conflict by benefitting both humans and the elephant population.

The DWLC has arranged to establish more electric fences for the protection of villagers close to forests mainly in the North Western Wildlife Zone and in addition to have a trench system dug along with a fence line despite the exercise being highly expensive.

Over 2,250 civil security corps members would be absorbed to the department to prevent the human-elephant conflict.