Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located about 31 km off the southern coast of India. The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage was first established by the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation in 1975 for feeding and providing care and sanctuary to orphaned baby elephants that were found in the wild. It is located at Pinnawala village, 13 km (8.1 mi) northeast of Kegalle town in Sabaragamuwa Province of Sri Lanka. Pinnawala is now the largest herd of captive elephants in the world. In 2011, there were 88 elephants, including 89 males and 51 females from 3 generations, living in Pinnawala.
Coconut is the most widespread plantation crop in Sri Lanka, occupying 20% of the
cultivated land area. The King Coconut is one of the most famous and tasty varieties found in the country. Even elephants like it....
The Sri Lankan elephant population shows a marked reduction during last five decades, mainly due to destruction of elephant habitats by development projects and illegal encroachments. With the limitations of the lands available for elephants and escalating human-elephant conflicts, domestication of the elephants appear to one of the viable way of conserving elephants. However, with the low demand for draft, domestication of elephants should be targeted on more economically attractive options such as tourism. A descriptive statistical analysis revealed that, about 8% of the sampled tourists have selected the Sri Lanka as their tours destination mainly to see the elephants while around 20% tourists arrive to Sri Lanka with an intention of watching elephants. The study revealed that more than 80% tourists like to experience the elephant rides whereas more than 60% tourists prefer experience on the elephant safaris (Bandara & Gunaratne, 2014). The survey carried out with the managers shows that more than 70 % of hotels and accommodations that are located vicinity of the parks have involved in any kind of elephant related activities as keeping elephants for tourism, promotion of elephant related activities and facilitating elephant watching.
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Perera, S. A. C. N., Dissanayaka, H. D. M. A. C., Herath, H. M. N. B., Meegahakumbura, M. G. M. K., & Perera, L. (2014). Quantitative Characterization of Nut Yield and Fruit Components in Indigenous Coconut Germplasm in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Biodiversity, 2014.
De Mel, R. K., Kumara, M. R. D., Dangolla, A., Jayasekera, J., Nanayakkara, D. K. K., Rajapakse, C., ... & Weerakoon, D. K. (2013). An assessment of the stress levels of captive elephants held under different management conditions using serum cortisol levels.
Bandara, K., & Gunaratne, L. (2014). Economic potential of the tourism industry to conserve the endangered elephants in sri lanka. Wildlanka, 1(1), 17-32.
