Gathering of Elephants or a gathering of Jeeps!
In the last few years, the ‘Gathering’ of elephants at Minneriya has been the much publicised wildlife spectacle which has lured many tourists to Sri Lanka,, but whether this event will continue to remain as attractive is questionable. On a visit last month to the Minneriya national park we saw some alarming signs of the conflict between man and beast reach new heights — the number of jeeps aggressively driving directly into and blocking the pathways of the elephants way outnumbered the elephants.
Jeeps outnumber the elephants
Some of us had been to Minneriya Park before and had seen around 200 elephants and still have such lovely memories of them. This was only a few years ago. Back then, by the time the jeeps got there the elephants had already come out of the thicket and were grazing on the grass growth on the dried up parts of the tank. There were several baby elephants protected by the big ones, the young adults frolicking around, and the others who looked like they were relaxing in the company of friends. There were only about 10 jeeps and they did not seem to threaten the animals at all.
This time it was different. We were advised to enter the park early – around 2.30 p.m. The elephants had not come out for their evening rendezvous.
More and more jeeps were coming in and circling around to find where the elephants were.
Finally nine elephants came out very cautiously and managed to walk about a little but before long there was an unending train of jeeps, driving quite aggressively in and blocking the pathways of the elephants. This was apparent when the second group of 8 or 9 elephants came out but soon retreated and went back to the thicket for cover. There were two loners and one of them looked quite annoyed.
All in all we saw only about 20 elephants. Most of all it was heart breaking to see a she elephant who had a deformity on one of the hind legs dragging herself with her two playful babies at her side.
There were 40 plus jeeps and most of them had just two tourists in each vehicle. The 22 in our group were in two jeeps. Some years ago even when we had a group of 12 New Zealand friends we had travelled in only two jeeps. It is true that the international tourists pay much more to see the elephants than we do but when we travel to other countries and to environmentally sensitive spots, the luxury of a whole jeep for two persons is a comfort not on offer.
Several websites and articles promoting Sri Lanka tourism note that the Gathering of elephants at Minneriya is expected to peak in August and September at the height of the drought but may be this really happens later, may be late September – October. The park was drought stricken when we visited in August but there was some water. Not a lot, only a relatively small amount.
The travel guide Lonely Planet has ranked the elephant gathering as number 6 among its pick of the 10 greatest wildlife spectacles. This along with the multitude of articles and programmes in the different media have in the past five years or so drawn much attention to this very special annual wildlife event on our soil. But as far back as 2011 this problem of increasing visitor numbers had been noted in the Sunday Times of July 17, and maybe it could have been arrested if the necessary steps were taken then. Iinstead it has only grown several-fold.
We often see cases highlighting the human – elephant conflict in the media but it has now been taken to extraordinary proportions with this invasion of jeeps into the parks where the animals are supposed to be protected. The elephants will sooner or later make their feelings known by not appearing at all when they sense that the jeeps are on their way. Elephants have an acute sense of hearing and if the wildlife authorities don’t take steps to arrest this intrusion it will be a case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Not only will the elephants stay away but the tourists who visit will tell their friends not to bother with the gathering of elephants as all they’d see will be a gathering of jeeps!
All of us who love Sri Lanka, the country’s wildlife and especially the elephants want to share this special experience with others. For some tourists and overseas visitors seeing these elephants up close in their natural environment is a once in a lifetime experience. However if stringent measures are not taken by the custodians of these nature reserves to monitor the inflow of traffic it will be up to the jumbos to draw the line on the intrusions into their world.