A trumpeting elephant welcomes you into Yala National Park’s museum. Triggered by a sensor that notes your entrance, a player runs through the gamut of animal sounds from the forest as a leopard growls and deer bark. Imprinted clearly into the cement floor are leopard pug marks, accurately placed to reflect the big cat’s stride. Along the walls are beautiful new cases filled with everything from skulls to skin to spoor, all of which are accompanied by explanations and interesting facts.
 |
| Nikhil and Vikram |
If you’ve had the chance to visit the old museum, you’re bound to be amazed by the difference. The new display makes the most of the museum’s wonderful collection, and represents the flora and fauna of Yala from canopy to seashore. It makes for a great introduction to the park, especially for children.
Sprawling over a whopping 150,000 hectares, Yala is home to 280 species of trees and plants (including many medicinal plants) 32 species of mammals, 230 species of birds and 40 species of butterflies. Visitors to the park often arrive determined to catch a glimpse of the park’s top predator - panthera pardus. With one leopard per 1.1 square kilometres, Block 1 of Yala has one of the highest densities in leopard populations in the world.
Some of the other creatures on display are so elusive that you might never see them outside these cases – the sloth bear is considered a rare sighting, along with reptiles like the Sri Lankan flying snake. Expect children to go bug eyed over the likes of the two crocodile skeletons suspended from the ceiling – each is well over ten feet long. Mammoth elephant skulls and a many-ribbed python skeleton will offer something in the way of competition.
The museum also boasts an interesting collection of spoor and a small collection of eggs including those of crocodiles and birds. Nests, skulls, beaks and feet all find their way into the display, but you can most appreciate the sheer beauty of Yala’s birds in the photographs taken by accomplished wildlife photographers like Rukshan Jayawardene, Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne and Kithsiri Gunawardena.
Since it was refurbished in 2007, the museum has stood as a tribute to the place two little boys loved most in Sri Lanka. Vikram was nearly 8 and and Nikhil was 5 when they lost their lives in the 2004 tsunami while visiting the park. Their father, Dr. Stephen Lissenburgh and their grandparents Gemini and Edward Deraniyagala were also killed that day.
Dr. Sonali Deraniyagala remembers her elder son’s great love for the white bellied sea eagles in Yala – “Vikram was an astute birdwatcher, and was reading his grandfather’s copy of Henry's Guide to Sri Lanka Birds since he was five.
” Grandfather and grandson would spend many hours together bird watching. Nikhil enjoyed the park too, and was delighted by the sight of elephants rolling in the mud.
Their father was an equally ardent fan. “Steve had been coming to Yala since we met at Cambridge when we were 18,” writes Dr. Deraniyagala, adding that he nurtured in his sons “a love for all things natural and wild.”
It is with the funds raised by the boys’ school in England, the Hollypark Primary School, that Dr. Deraniyagala had the museum refurbished.
Along with Dr. Malathi de Alwis, she compiled a great deal of information for the museum’s display herself. Jino Kodituwakku was the architect responsible for the new design, while Caryll Tozer oversaw the project’s implementation.
Today, The Vikram and Nikhil Lissenburgh Trust maintains the museum. |
E-mail