JKH wildlife conservation efforts extend to drought relief for animals at Yala National Park
View(s):Cinnamon Wild Yala in collaboration with John Keells Foundation, the group’s CSR entity, recently arranged 30 bowser loads of 15,000 litres each, filling and maintaining several medium scale water holes inside the Yala National Park where animals have ben affected by a severe drought.
Walkers Tours joined in this effort by raising funds for 12 bowser loads ensuring a steady supply of water throughout the peak period of the drought for the park animals, the company said.
“Further, as an ongoing Animal Welfare and wild life conservation initiative, JKH, via its foundation continues to support “Project Leopard” together with Cinnamon Wild Yala and the Cinnamon Nature Trails naturalists.
The steel pen concept, pioneered by Dr. Ravi Samarasingha to minimise the human-leopard conflict, is now adopted by Cinnamon Wild as part of their responsibility in safeguarding this illusive cat, while restoring and uplifting the livelihoods of the cattle farmers in the surrounding areas. This project is implemented and supervised by the Cinnamon Nature Trails naturalists at Cinnamon Wild,” it said. “The ‘Cinnamon Elephant Project’ which is a collaborative effort between the Cinnamon Hotels, John Keells Foundation and the Centre for Conservation and Research breaks new ground in developing elephant viewing based tourism and taking it to a higher level through integration of research and tourism. The project will track some of the smaller elephant herds living around the “Hurulu” reserve to understand the seasonal movement of the elephant herds that are part of the larger gathering. Under this programme elephants are individually identified based on their morphological characters and their life stories followed by the naturalists at the Cinnamon Hotels.