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Bringing the wilds close to home
The discovery of an albino elephant at the Yala National Park earlier this year spawned an unprecedented media frenzy. Leopard expert Dr. Ravi Samarasinha has his own chapter to add to the white elephant saga for in June 1999 he was able to photograph this newsmaking jumbo. "A frontal view with the eye clearly visible" is his description.

This rare shot will be among the many extraordinary photographs that will appear in a new book 'Wilds of Lanka: A visual treat of Yala National Park' by Ravi Samarasinha and Chitral Jayatilake, both known as ardent wildlife enthusiasts. The book to be released in December this year carries some 140 pages of compelling photographs and text bringing the world of Yala up close to readers.

"The idea is to give the average person a basic idea of the park and what he is likely to see," says Ravi. Four chapters titled simply Yala, Elephants, Leopards and Birds offer unique insights and a photographic portfolio compiled by the two during their countless visits to the park.

The book also contains a complete list of Yala's tuskers meticulously documented by Chitral with their names and photographs. Sri Lanka needs to be vigilant of its tuskers Ravi says, for with just nine percent of our elephant population being tuskers, there is a very real danger of their genes being lost forever. "A tusker is like a tree," Chithtral adds, "it takes many years to grow. We have to protect them."

Of particular interest in the Leopard section is a photo-sequence of leopard cubs at play. Chitral is delighted with these, explaining how the 'Kota bendi wewa cubs', a male and female born in the latter part of 2002, were known for their feisty ways. "I went as many as 11 times to see them and on my ninth visit was rewarded. We found them sleeping side-by-side, then waking up, stretching and then rolling around in aggressive play. At one point, the female was tossing elephant dung around like a ball. After 45 minutes, tired out, they went back to sleep."

The cubs have gone their separate ways now, so it was a special moment, he feels. The duo's interest in wildlife is deep rooted. For Ravi, his planter father initiated him early into birdwatching and he progressed to taking photographs as his interest grew. Though becoming a doctor, he could never quite shake off his fascination with the wild. As he travelled widely around the island, he says his eyes were opened as he saw the changes taking place and realized the urgent need for conservation. Came the point he had to make a choice between medicine and wildlife. Wildlife won.

Ravi has devoted much of the last ten years to extensive research on the leopards of Yala though the entirety of his findings is yet to be published. Meanwhile his interest has also been shifting slightly to Wilpattu. A mine of information and leopard lore, he says the Yala leopards are bigger, healthier and there are far more of them in Block 1, some 35 to 40, a higher density than in Wilpattu. If one were to take into account the cubs, the number would rise to around 50. At Wilpattu, he has been able to identify about 20 in the last six months.

What concerns him is that with the deer population having been decimated in Wilpattu, the leopards are short of food. They also only produce single cubs, whereas leopards in Yala often have three cubs in a single litter.

Like Ravi, Chitral gratefully acknowledges the debt he owes to his father who not only took him on trips to the parks but also encouraged him to use a camera. "The partnership I built with my father over two decades still continues as I hardly ever visit Yala without him," he writes.

With their indepth knowledge of the parks, Ravi and Chitral have their own views on how conservation should be handled. Ravi believes that the issue of protecting the habitat is crucial. “More than one leopard being killed, it's a forest being cleared that we have to be concerned about," he says. "For without the forest, the leopard cannot live." The key, he feels, is to demarcate protected areas and have a national land-use policy which would also then hopefully link up the protected areas.

There is also an urgent need to regularize chena cultivation, how much land should be cleared for at present huge tracts of land are being burned. Only once that is done can we talk of poaching and other attendant issues.

The commercial use of our wildlife wealth is acceptable, so long as it is properly managed, adds Chitral, pointing out the dangers of over-visitation of the parks. “Everybody has a right to enjoy our wildlife but there must be some limits, not 500 vehicles in Yala in one day." Ravi proposes that there should be more places made available in forests for people to camp out and enjoy the outdoors. "Most people come to Yala simply because they don't know of anywhere else to go," he says.

The fruits of conservation should percolate down to the people who live on the fringes of the park, they feel. “Educate the villagers and see that the benefits filter down to them,” stresses Ravi who adds that commercial ventures should be allowed only on the boundaries of the park and not within.

'Wilds of Lanka' came about when Chitral preparing to hold his third exhibition of wildlife photographs was advised by a friend to publish them in a book instead. He invited Ravi to join in and they sifted through over a thousand photos in their collection to pick the 111 that appear in the book, for which they are now accepting pre-publication bookings.

"We were quick to realize that photography could be used not only as a tool for research documentation but perhaps as a powerful visual means of creating widespread awareness of the need for intensive conservation," writes Chitral in his preface. That indeed is their hope with ‘Wilds of Lanka’.-Renuka Sadanandan

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