Arugam Bay - Stardust Beach Hotel

It is difficult to imagine Sri Lanka without the elephants, for they are so much a part of our history, culture, religion, mythology, and lately even politics. From ancient times, the Kings of Sri Lanka had maintained and cared for elephants in their Royal Courts. Prior to the Colonial occupation of Sri Lanka, all wild elephants were the property of the Crown. According to Robert Knox (1681) King Rcjasingha 11 maintained hundreds of elephants in his stables. These were of course augmented from time to time through capture in the wild. The maintenance of so many elephants in captivity points to the availability of experienced mahouts and adequate veterinary care

* Since the turn of the century, management of wildlife in general and the elephants in particular have largely been on intuitive grounds. As Lamprey (1974) points out, nature to follow its own course appears to have operated divantageously in most national parks in the world, and It continues to do so in many at present, But with the appointment of C.W. Nicholas as the Warden of the Department of Wild Life in 1950, the management of elephants and their habitats began gradually to be based on scientific research. C.E Norris (1959, 1967) undertook the first island-wide survey of elephants in 1958 and estimated the number of elephants in the wild to be between 1,600 and 1,700 (Uragoda, 1994), of which 355 animals inhabited the Ruhuna National Park. Given the importance of the habitat quality for the survival of elephants, Christy S, Wickremasinghe, who was a student of Prof. David Burt at the University of Ceylon, began a study of the food plants of elephants in the Lahugala ~'area in the late 1950's and early 1960's. His studies indicated that grass 'Species such as Socclolepis inteffupto and Cynodon dactylon were the most preferred 'food Items of elephants (cle Silva, 1960, cle Alwis, 1970).

We owe a great debt to the pioneering studies of Paulus Eclword Pieris (P.E.P) Derciniyugc)la who was the Director of the National Museum in Colombo. Elephants became a favourite subject of his, and it was he who first recognized the need for systematic scientific research as a basis for improved management of elephants in Sri Lanka. Between 1936 and 1970, Deraniyagoici contributed substantially to our understanding of the status of elephants in Sri Lanka. His book, Some Extinct Elephants, their Relatives and the Two Living Species, published in 1955 still remcins an invaluable source of reference to all of us. He recognized the largest of the extant elephants inhabiting the swamps cind villus of the lower Mchoweli river basin in the Eastern Province as a distinct subspecies, Elephas maximus viialiya, which is relatively tuskless and more massive than the "forma typica" Elephas maximus maximus (Deraniyagolo, 1940; 1955), But according to Prof. Merlin Peris (1986) this is now taken to be a case of overspecificaition, and the size of E. m. viaiiyais largely the result of the rich fodder.