- Sri Lanka recently carried out a three-day elephant survey by counting the animals as they visited watering holes across the country.
- It’s the first such survey carried out since 2011, when Sri Lanka’s minimum elephant population was estimated at 5,879.
- In the intervening period, a total of 4,262 elephants have died, many of them in conflicts with humans, so it won’t be clear until the results are published in a month’s time whether the population trend is up or down.
- Despite potential inaccuracies in the total count, the survey is expected to provide essential insights, such as the male-to-female ratio and the number of calves, which are key indicators of the health of Sri Lanka’s Asian elephant population.
COLOMBO — This past Aug. 17 would have been just another ordinary day for the elephants of Sri Lanka: feeding, drinking, resting and, for some, raiding nearby farms. But for the staff of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) and thousands of volunteers, it was the start of a busy weekend as they carried out the task of counting the country’s elephants — the first such count in 13 years.
Equipped with rations for three days, some volunteers stationed in remote locations climbed makeshift treehouses overlooking watering holes, while others found safer spots where they still had a clear view of the Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Each participant was given a data sheet to fill out. The DWC employed a method known as “waterhole counting,” which gives a rough gauge of elephant abundance from the number of elephants observed visiting watering holes to drink.
“The month of August was chosen for the count as it’s typically the driest month in Sri Lanka, so elephants needing water visit these sources to quench their thirst,” said Chandana Sooriyabandara, director-general of the DWC. The department identified 3,130 such water sources frequented by elephants and deployed nearly 8,000 people to conduct the three-day count starting on Aug. 17, Sooriyabandara told Mongabay. The last day of the count, Aug. 19, coincided with a full moon, allowing the wilderness to be illuminated by moonlight and making it easier to count the elephants.
Did rain interfere with the count?
However, months of preparation were threatened by unseasonal rains that Sri Lanka started receiving a couple of weeks before the start of the count. The rains created water puddles, allowing elephants to drink without needing to visit the monitored watering holes. A similar count planned for 2019 had to be canceled due to rains, and there were calls to postpone this year’s count as well, given that the survey results would be used for elephant conservation over the next decade.
Despite these concerns, and heavy rains in several localities, the DWC deemed the count a success. It’s now analyzing the data, and says it will take at least a month to release the results of the survey.
More than the total number, understanding the general structure and composition of the elephant population is crucial, said Shanmugasundaram Wijeyamohan of the University of Vavuniya. The waterhole count method was introduced to Sri Lanka by the late Charles Santiapillai, a renowned elephant conservationist and biologist, in 1992, and the last comprehensive elephant count, in 2011, also used this method.
Controversies and criticisms
The waterhole counting method has its share of critics, with some pointing out that not all elephants may visit the monitored watering holes, as some might prefer rivers or other water sources. Different methods of surveying elephants each have their own flaws, Wijeyamohan. Aerial monitoring is used in many parts of Africa where savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) range across wide open expanses, but in forested Sri Lanka this method would be unfeasible, he said. Another method, the dung count, involves counting elephant droppings along predefined paths to estimate the population, but doesn’t provide demographic data or insights into the structure of the elephant population.
The 2011 count estimated that Sri Lanka was home to 5,879 elephants, with a significant number in North Central, Eastern, and Northern provinces, which are key habitats for the species. The count also provided insights into the population’s demographics, including a male-to-female ratio of 1:3.
According to the count, 55% of the population were adult elephants, with 1,107 calves. These results, particularly the sex ratio and number of calves, indicated a healthy elephant population, Wijeyamohan told Mongabay. “We need to examine the 2024 survey results to assess any significant changes in these ratios rather than focusing solely on the total number of elephants,” he added.
The primary threat to Sri Lanka’s elephants is conflict with humans. Since the 2011 count, some 4,000 elephants have died — nearly the total number counted in that last survey.
Unreliable counts
“Counting the total number of elephants in a country or region is not easy, and the waterhole counting method will not provide an accurate total,” said Prithiviraj Fernando, an elephant biologist who leads the Centre for Conservation and Research (CCRSL) and has conducted pioneering research on Asian elephants.
“The biggest issue with the waterhole survey is that the number of elephants counted is directly proportional to the number of observation points. If the same number of points as last time is used, a similar number will likely be counted; fewer points would result in a lower count, and more points would result in a higher count,” Fernando told Mongabay.
Counting elephants is difficult, and no method is easy or entirely reliable, he added. Methods such as identifying individual elephants through photos or mark-recapture, which involves tagging elephants and releasing them, can provide reliable estimates but are extremely time-consuming, expensive, and not feasible at the scale of a country, Fernando said.
A more useful survey, he added, would assess where elephants are located, whether they consist of herds or solitary males, and whether they’re seasonal or resident. His own survey, conducted by breaking down the country into pixels of 25 square kilometers (10 square miles), found wild elephants across 60% of Sri Lanka, with 70% of that range being shared with human populations, leading to intense conflict between humans and elephants. Even without precise numbers, this information is valuable for conservation efforts, Fernando told Mongabay.
He suggested similar surveys, based on questionnaires, could be conducted on a finer scale in areas of conservation concern, such as at the edges of elephant distribution or where development projects are planned. Such data could then inform conservation and management decisions.
A hidden agenda?
Sri Lankan environmentalists have raised concerns that the results of the latest count could be misused. In 2011, they questioned why the count also recorded the kinds of tusks on the observed elephants, saying this had no conservation value but could be of interest to people seeking to capture wild elephants. Sri Lanka has a tradition of parading elephants in religious processions, and owning an elephant, and particularly a tusker, is considered a status symbol, leading to the illegal capture of elephants from the wild in the past. Activists have repeatedly expressed concern over the true purpose behind gathering such data.
This time around, such fears have been given weight by calls from Jagath Priyankara, a member of parliament, to address human-elephant conflict by reducing the wild elephant population. Priyankara has proposed measures such as exporting elephants to foreign countries, and capturing and training them for captivity. Environmentalists say that if the 2024 count reveals a significantly higher number of elephants than in 2011, local politicians may put pressure on the government to capture and remove elephants from certain areas. A higher count could also suggest there are too many elephants, potentially leading to a reduction in conservation efforts. But a higher count shouldn’t be used to justify the killing of elephants or capturing them for domestication, environmentalists say.
Banner image: A tusker with a herd of elephants in Sri Lanka. Image by Mevan Piyaseana.
One elephant a day: Sri Lanka wildlife conflict deepens as death toll rises
Citation:
Fernando, P., De Silva, M. K., Jayasinghe, L. K., Janaka, H. K., & Pastorini, J. (2019). First country-wide survey of the endangered Asian elephant: Towards better conservation and management in Sri Lanka. Oryx, 55(1), 46-55. doi:10.1017/S0030605318001254
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