Avoiding a death knell for our national parks
Jeeps speeding in Yala, raising dust. Pic by Chamara Amaratunga
I am sure that many of us will aver that we do not contribute to killing a wild animal for its parts. We may rest assured that we do not buy rhinoceros horns as status symbols, bear gallbladders to treat various diseases, or wear feline fur coats.
However, we, in Sri Lanka, are contributing to the endangerment of some of our most iconic – or should I say, like the Guardian newspaper, most #instagramfamous – animals.
We are doing so by overexploiting natural resources through over-visitation and irresponsible behaviour.
In the last week, there has been hysteria about a black leopard in Yala, with video clips and photos going viral on YouTube, WhatsApp and other social media. A journalist, writing in the Daily Mirror of March 30, 2023, names and quotes the Yala Park Warden stating that there had been a shocking ‘90% increase in the number of visitors arriving at the Park to see this black leopard.’
A friend recently sent me a video from Yala, which shows a leopard walking towards the person who is filming, and not far behind the leopard, is a mayhem of cars. When the leopard walks forward, this jam of cars moves in unison behind it, and then the leopard veers off into the scrub.
As I write this, some memory is jogged that I have written much of the same before. I check my archives, and yes, I have done so, in 2013, published in this same paper.
‘In the last few weeks, the inboxes of many concerned for the environment have been full of emails about the state of Yala National Park. With these emails were many pictures of traffic jams reminiscent of Thummulla junction at rush hour and showing visitors violating basic rules that should be followed in a national park……… We are killing the very goose that lays the golden egg: the natural environment and its resources.’
So, a decade has gone by and nothing has changed?
Some things have changed for the better. Slowly, steadily, and surely, we are building a picture of the charismatic Sri Lankan leopard’s behaviour, ecology, distribution, the threats to its survival, as well as the creation of awareness in areas when the leopard is seen as a threat. This is thanks to the untiring work of Dr. Andrew Kittle, Anjali Watson, Prof. Enoka Kudawidanage, Dinal Samarasinghe, Rukshan Jayewardene, Sanka Wanniarachchi, Dushyantha de Silva and the Leopard Diaries, Leopocon, WNPS and several others. We are now able to formulate meaningful conservation actions and target them where they are most needed.
But some things have changed for the worse.
Firstly, there is now an increasing swarm of people visiting national parks in various parts of the country and a mob of nouveau photographers, armed with lenses as long as an adult forearm, perhaps with adequate knowledge to use their complicated equipment, flocking to national parks and other key locations (like Mannar, during the bird migratory season or Mirissa, to watch whales). However, they do not have adequate knowledge of the ethics of wildlife photography or the sheer love of the natural world around us, that leap out of photographs by renowned wildlife photographers such as Luxshmanan Nadaraja, Rukshan Jayewardene, Kithsiri Gunawardena, Vimukthi Weeratunga, Namal Kamalgoda and Riaz Cader to name a select few – who use their photography to promote conservation of the wildlife they love.
The primary lesson wildlife photographers should know is to put the well-being of animals first. I remember visiting Mannar on a birding trip once, my friends and I drove to Kora Kulam, left our vehicle on the main road, and walked to the area where the pond was. We did not approach the pond directly but took a large detour where we could see the huge flock of birds from a distance. Among the usual suspects were four ruddy shelducks (Tadorna ferruginea), whom we watched through our binoculars or eyepieces on cameras, as they flew and wheeled, landed and fed in perfect unison, as if choreographed by the great Balanchine. After we had our fill, we retraced our steps when a large SUV turned abruptly into the area. I walked up to the window and said to the driver “There are four very rare ruddy shelducks there. The noise of a car will disturb them.” He replied very rudely, “Yes, I have photographed them already, I want to take more photographs.” Acutely aware that I had no authority to stop him, I stepped back, only to hear him roar up to the pond, scattering the entire flock. All he seemed to be interested in was the perfect shot, perhaps to sell, or to garner more likes and followers on social media.
Secondly, irresponsible behaviour in national parks is increasingly worsening. Now everyone has smart phones and information about a sighting can pass like wildfire among visitors. This leads to speeding within the park, many vehicles converging at a spot, traffic jams, vehicles jostling closer, people climbing on the roofs of vehicles, or horrifyingly, climbing out of vehicles, all to get a better vantage of the sighting, usually a leopard or a leopard with her cubs. These behaviours are themselves distressing, but when speeding within the park leads to road kills inside the park, it flies off the scales of distress.
The third negative trend is that not only is everyone now an expert, but also an expert whose opinions – not based on sound science nor careful background research from dedicated sites – zip through social media faster than a lightning bolt. Black leopards are named a new species, although they are not a separate species, nor a separate subspecies, but only a colour variant, with black furred and spotted cubs occurring in the same litter – just like black and golden labradors. A newspaper headline screams ‘Rampant increase in wet zone hill country leopard population’ although we do not have historical data or even data from the turn of this century about how many leopards there were in the highlands to assess that an increase is occurring now. So, in parallel with rampant irresponsible behaviour, is an increasing spiral of misinformation.
Over-visitation not only affects iconic species such as leopards, elephants and whales, but also the habitats in which many species live. The Knuckles range of mountains has staggering levels of diversity and astonishing levels of endemism and range-restricted endemism. In recent years, Knuckles has become rapidly popular with local tourists but this popularity is accompanied by irresponsible behaviour – such as walking in the streams in Pitawala Patana (a popular grassland), moving rocks, polluting the water, and destroying the very restricted habitat of Kirthisinghe’s rock frog (Nannophrys marmorata), a species which is found only in a thin layer of water in shallow streams of the Knuckles area – and nowhere else in the whole world.
What can we do to stop this siege against Sri Lanka’s natural riches, already beleaguered by a multitude of threats, including unplanned, burgeoning development based on impulsive political will?
That existing regulations under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance and other environmental laws must be implemented strictly is obvious. It is very heartening to see that the Department of Wildlife Conservation — official custodians of our wildlife – temporarily imposed a ‘no-go zone’ to prevent visitors from flocking to see the black leopard, recently sighted in Yala. However, there is a need for all of us wildlife enthusiasts to support them in their efforts to be consistent and sustained in the implementation of relevant laws and to support the implementation of the 31 actions discussed by Dr. Sumith Pilapitiya, in a recent public lecture.
Boycotting erring jeep drivers and boat owners is another obvious solution but not when many people visiting parks and other natural areas are doing so as part of a usual Sri Lanka experience of getting on a bus, singing loudly en route to the destination, alighting somewhere and eating a meal packed in plastic food wraps, chucking those wraps anywhere, and proceeding to the next stop. Yet others are seeking thrills of a close encounter with an elephant or intent on seeing nature only through a phone screen or a camera eyepiece to obtain that ‘glory shot’. They are not in national parks to connect with nature – to listen to the music of bird calls, to be stunned at the height of a hora tree or the size of a blue whale; or to marvel at the lithe grace of a moving leopard.
Given that the underlying threat of this particular assault against our natural riches is social media, what can be done?
So, as a first step, let us all be more discerning. Let us stop forwarding messages that have not been fact-checked.
As a second step, would it not be possible to ramp up existing campaigns about ethical wildlife photography like those of the Parrotfish Collective and responsible behaviour in national parks by the WNPS? In parallel, establishing targeted, issue-driven communication campaigns to immediately course-correct misinformation generated through social media (such as about the sighted black leopard) is needed critically. There are continuing efforts, by various organisations to create awareness among jeep drivers, to stop them from supporting irresponsible behaviour and thrill-seeking. A great deal of effort is currently being expended for creating awareness in areas where leopard deaths in the island are high. As a matter of urgency, there is now a need for a social media blitz creating conservation literacy about how to behave in national parks and other natural areas.
A third step is that we do not need to preach to the choir. So perhaps, we need to borrow a leaf from advertising agencies, not only to identify the exact market we must reach, but also how best to reach them and then to evaluate how effective our campaign has been.
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