Editorial photo #10063298 Disaster and Accident

Sri Lanka Is The Country With The Highest Number Of Elephant Deaths In The World

ant conflict is a major problem in Sri Lanka. A police officer is processing the postmortem reports of a Sri Lankan wild elephant, known as Elephas maximus maximus by its scientific name, on May 20, 2023 in Habarana, Sri Lanka. According to the Wildlife Department, over 7,000 elephants have been reported across Sri Lanka and they are losing their habitat due to humans clearing forests and building settlements, leading to frequent visits to elephant villages and creating an elephant-human conflict. In 2022, 433 elephant deaths and 145 human deaths will have been reported due to this problem. From January 1 to April 25, 2023, 114 elephant deaths have been reported, with 34 from Anuradhapura district, 29 from Polonnaruwa district, and 19 from Eastern Province. In 2023, 36 people will have died due to elephant-human conflict. Sri Lankans have been taming and using wild elephants for their cultural and religious activities since ancient times, and elephants have been used by man since the days of the kings of Sri Lanka, through the Portuguese and Dutch eras, and to the present day. Elephants are still widely used for Buddhist processions, such as the Kandy Dalada Perahera, and are useful for the development of Sri Lanka's tourism industry, bringing in a lot of foreign exchange. However, the human-elephant conflict remains a major problem in Sri Lanka.