Courtesy The Daily Mirror

Wildlife officials have been advised by their director general to arrest people who feed wild elephants and those cause harm to them, after increasing incidents have been reported.

Director General of Wildlife Department, Chandana Suriyabandara said that incidents were reported not only on the Buttala-Kataragama road, but also in other places like Udawalawa, Habarana, etc.

The attention of the ministry in this regard had been focused on the news published in the media as well as on social media, showing cases of accidents to vehicles due to attacks by wild elephants on the Buttala-Kataragama road, he said.

Accordingly, the damage caused by wild elephants has increased due to people traveling in vehicles on those roads, feed the pachyderms, he said.
 
They said the animals used to get food from the vehicles, and some passengers and drivers tried to harm the wild elephants by driving them away with thorns. 

Minister Mahinda Amaraweera advised the Wildlife Director General to initiate a short-term program immediately to minimize such incidents.

As a result, officers and vehicles from the Yala Forest Site Office were deployed over the last four days, from 5:00 am to midnight and mobile vehicles were used to drive away the wild elephants that were straying on the Buttala-Kataragama road, to prevent vehicle accidents.

The wildlife department says that during the past four days, due to the deployment of mobile vehicles on the Buttala-Kataragama road, wild elephants have stopped coming towards the road, and incidents of damage to vehicles have not been reported during that period.

Wild Life Director General Chandana Suriyabandara said that the wildlife department has decided to continue to apply this program from now on. (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)