By Ifham Nizam
A country-wide elephant census will be conducted this week, not to give away tuskers, but for the welfare of both elephants and humans, Agrarian Services and Wildlife Minister S. M. Chandrasena said yesterday.
He said however that a number of temples, including the Dalada Maligawa had requested for tuskers for perahera and other religious activities.
"Under no circumstances, will the tuskers be removed from the wild, as it is against the Fauna and Flora Ordinance Act," he told a media briefing in Colombo.
He says tuskers will be removed from the wild only through isolated incidents such as the mother being killed or the calves being abandoned. In such cases calves will be taken to Ath Athuru Sevana and given away to places of religious worship.
Even President Mahinda Rajapaksa had told him some of the temples had requested for tuskers, the Minister said.
Chandrasena also said that there were 300 tame elephants in the country earlier and at present it stands as 120.
"The sole purpose of the census is to curb the human-elephant conflict and to mitigate the crop damage which runs into millions of rupees," he added.
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=32087
No comments:
Post a Comment