The Elephant Journal

Elephants are known to be gregarious, usually moving is small, well-knit family groups. This could consist of two or three families sometimes formed into a herd at feeding grounds or watering places. A family group like this rarely exceeds more than 15 and within it are fathers, mothers, aunts, brother and sisters. The most intriguing fact of all is they all depend on an elderly female for purposes of discipline, movement to food and water and such activities. A strong bull is usually set aside to look after the general safety of the family and protecting them from unwelcomed guests and even ‘flirtatious youth’.

Best place to see elephants? 

When you first start to do a little research on where to see elephants in Sri Lanka, one of the first things that will pop is elephant orphanages. We struggle to find ethical reasoning for these orphanages no matter how reputable and conservation-focused they might come across online. Some of these facilities claim to have elephants’ best interest at heart while in reality border-lining on animal cruelty. With these reasons in mind, the best way to appreciate the true stature of elephant is to watch a herd ‘in the wild’ where they are in their element and displaying qualities of social life. 

Minneriya or Kaudulla National Parks, located 200km northeast of Colombo, are home to over 300 wild elephants. The best time to visit these parks fall between July to October and some might even say the experience in terms of seeing numbers, is greater than the experience at Tembe elephant park in South Africa and Etosha in Namibia.

Park visitor number do peaks in July and August because of “The Gathering”, where hundreds of elephants make their pilgrimage to Minneriya from Kaudulla. They have made this trip for centuries, coming from across the region to bathe, mate, socialize and most importantly feed at the shores of an ancient reservoir built by a king more than 1,700 years ago.

The Asian elephant has become part of the region’s culture, especially in Sri Lanka.

An elephant is capable of stirring one’s imagination as no other living thing has done. They are remarkably unique creatures that have served humans as well as entertaining them since bygone times. As Plutarch once said ‘What is bigger than an elephant?’. Clearly, in the long history of evolution, no animal has seemed to be so endowed with characteristics that baffled man’s understanding than the elephant. So, it would only make sense if we put a little effort to understand this gentle giant in return.

One of the things that personify the colossal creature is its trunk- needed for collecting food and drinking/bathing in water. This is best explained in scientific terms. The elephant has such an efficient feeding mechanism and the ‘enormously elongated nose and upper lip with appropriate muscle and sensitive grasping tip’ is capable of reaching the taller branches of a tree or drawing water from a narrow rock waterhole. This special organ works somewhere up to 18 hours a day just gathering nearly 400 pounds of food (as an adult elephant requires) and perhaps 40 gallons of water which are squirted into the mouth or over its broad back (for dousing).

African or Asian?

It is only natural to compare the characteristics of similar animals that are separated by geography. Of course, a real elephant enthusiast can distinguish the difference between the African and Asian elephant by their physical appearance. The African gentle giant is tall, angular and hump-backed whereas the handsome Asian has a rounder and well-proportioned body and its back is more saddle-like. The ears of the African elephants usually are large, triangular, leathery flaps as opposed to the smaller, more shaped ones of the Asian. However, there’s no question about who’s taller. The African has a record of being 14 feet in height while the Asian’s average height is 10 feet.

Read our journal on Our Favourite Sri Lankan National Parks for further info on elephants and Sri Lankan wildlife.