Wasgamuwa National Park

Our late afternoon Wasgamuwa elephant safari turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we’d expected. We’d hoped to spot a few of Sri Lanka’s Asian elephants in their natural habitat from a safari jeep. The national park is one of the most unique but unvisited parks in Sri Lanka and to our knowledge we were the only people, along with our guides, on safari at this time in the whole of its vast 39000 hectares.

What we saw

At first we were delighted to see an array of wildlife including peacocks, golden jackals, grey herons, peafowl, baya weavers on their nests, egrets, a black-naped hare, spotted deer, grey-bellied cuckoos, land monitors and the back end of a crocodile as it scurried across the road into the water below. We came across 6 elephants, close but not that close, and moving away from us but we got some great photo shots.

A bit about the Sri Lankan elephant

The Wasgamuwa elephants tend to grow larger than elephants from some other national parks due to their natural habitat. The park is abundant with marshy wetlands and vast grasslands which supports the immense population of elephants that reside there. Each herd has a matriarch who is the oldest female.

There are limited wildlife trekkers here because Wasgamuwa is not a well visited national park. Positions usually only become available as a voluntary position, at least to begin with. The elephants get accustomed to the voice and smell of the trekkers and in order to help prevent conflict situations between elephant and human the trekkers communicate by talking to them often using an authoritative tone. As long as they’ve not been harmed by the human who they recognise then the elephant will generally respect them and not become edgy or aggressive.  

Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) is a big concern in Sri Lanka. Elephant encounters in human settlement areas, for example, habitat encroachment, migratory paths being take-over by recent development programmes and seasonal unfavorable conditions in protected areas are big issues. Elephant crop raids, property damages and sometimes human deaths occur at the hands of elephants. Also shots being fired at elephants, explosive traps being used on them, excessive use of fire crackers to chase them away, illegal poaching activities and road and railway-related accidents cause many losses of elephants annually. To solve these issues HEC experts say unique solutions are needed depending on location, social dynamics, environmental conditions and practicality.

The situation

We were driving around hoping to see more elephants and whilst doing so I decided to phone my Dad for a FaceTime call. I had just managed to get through to him to show him the safari we were on, as the phone signal looked quite good, when we saw a herd of elephants just to the right hand side of us. They were milling around and we’d stopped the jeep to see them up close. The problem arose when a baby elephant got curious and came too close to our jeep. One mother was not ‘covering’ her baby and when another mother saw this she stepped in to protect it. Further to this an adolescent male tried to protect the baby and his ears went up and he gave the trumpet which triggered more concern in the mothers. Our vehicle then became surrounded by elephants with me still on Facetime with my Dad who hadn’t quite grasped the situation we were in and said he had to go and he’d look out for the blog …

Volunteering Opportunities

If you or anyone you know may be interested in volunteering with elephants in Sri Lanka there are opportunities to do so. The volunteering could involve such things as working directly with elephants, both wild and those in captivity, helping with issues related to human/elephant conflict such as building bio fences, observation, research and data collection. If interested then let me know and I’ll pass on some contact details.

Next Up: Spotlight on our trip to meet the leader of the indigenous people of Sri Lanka

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