Episode 19 – Wildlife Reserves in Batticaloa District

A story about brotherhood

It was the year 2014 and those days I was working in Batticaloa District. There are several Reserves located in Batticaloa District and they all belong to the Department of Forest Conservation. There were no Reserves belonging to the Wildlife Department in this area. But the problem of wild elephants is there throughout the Batticaloa District. Therefore, the Beet Office was also maintained by the Wildlife Department. It was located near KalAdi Bridge. Several other officers worked under me in this office.

One day we received a message that a baby elephant was injured. When we went to the place, we saw male elephant calf about five years old lying down. When the calf was given saline, it got up and walked with difficulty towards the forest. Later we continued to look for the young elephant but did not find it. It was the time that L. T. T. E.  terror era and we didn’t walk much in the forests because there may be landmines planted by the terrorists.

About a week after this incident, a message came at around ten in the morning that an elephant had run into the village and was behaving violently. I had a limited staff to support me. Therefore, we went to the village with two army personnel. The elephant has behaved very violently. Usually, wild elephants attack villages at night but this incident happened in the morning. The elephant had gone to vicinity of a house and trampled a dog in front of it. There was also a pre-school nearby where children and people were shouting. We were looking for the elephant and the officers separated and went from place to place. In the meantime, we saw the elephant, it chased after us. Our vehicle was parked nearby and the driver was able to get into the vehicle. I did not get into the vehicle until others get into the it. But I realized that I don’t have time to get into the car. I ran and hid behind a tree. The elephant ran forward and I escaped. After some time, we shot the elephant and chased the elephant into the forest.

Then we investigated how this incident happened. We got to know that the baby elephant mentioned earlier is dead. While searching further, we found the dead body. The calf has eaten a hakkapatas (a food implanted with locally made mines). A male elephant has been crying and screaming near this calf for days. According to the information given by the villagers, it is the same elephant that came to this village. It was thought that the elephant had come to the village because of the suffering elephant calf.

I remembered this as a sensitive and pathetic event. Usually, elephants are accompanied by a mother or a herd, but here a male elephant is sitting with the calf. Maybe another elephant took care of a baby elephant that got away from the herd.

Many lives could have been lost in that incident.