Born to be wild!

Sri Lankan Elephants have always been part of the history, culture, pageantry, folklore and even politics of Sri Lanka. By tradition elephants from other parts of the world, including Africa, were believed to incline their heads or kneel to the Sri Lankan elephant, recognising it instinctively as their superior. Other legends affirmed the superiority of the Sri Lankan elephant; Onesicritus, a pilot in the navy that Alexander the Great brought to India, reported in the 3rd Century B.C. that the Sri Lankan elephant was fiercer than the Indian (quoted Deraniyagala, 1955 - 1). Vasco da Gama noted, during his pioneer voyage in 1497, that "the King of Ceylon has many elephants for war and for sale. King Raja Sinha I had 2,000 fighting elephants in the army that besieged the Portuguese Fort at Colombo in 1588. The human-elephant conflict appears to be the major cause of elephant mortality in Sri Lanka. Elephant populations in the wild have been reduced substantially in the past 50 years, during which between 1500 - 3000 elephants may have been killed in the wild. The present elephant population in Sri Lanka is estimated to be about 3,500.