Sri Lanka is home to one of the great wildlife spectacles of the world, and it is a huge tourist draw to the island. Over 300 hundred wild elephants journey to a man-made reservoir in Minneriya National Park to feed on fresh grass shoots emerging when water is withdrawn for irrigation. Park officials negotiated a limit on filling the reservoir to 70% of capacity so that the favored food is exposed when the elephants arrive in July. They have noticed that elephants are leaving Minneriya due to high water levels in the park.
"The Gathering" as it is known, generates $6.5 million in tourism annually for the local economy, which will be lost if the elephants leave. The ancient Minneriya resevoir is part of the island's complex irrigation system that has been impacted by a more recent multi-purpose irrigation project that releases water to the tank for farming in the dry season. According to wildlife officials, elephants left the park within seven to ten days of water release in 2018-2020. They still inhabit the national park, but the altered conditions at the tank may make "the Gathering" an event of the past.
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| credit: C. Jayatilake |
The good news is that among the elephants showing up at Minneriya this year, were two rare elephant twins. The photo shows that they are remarkably similar in appearance. Observers see them suckling from the same mother elephant, one on each side. They also play together. Genetic tests will be performed to confirm the behavioral observations. The male and female calves are the first live elephant twins recorded in Sri Lanka. Still born twin calves were discovered in 2018. Africa elephants are also known to produce twins, but it is a rare event. In Kenya's Amboseli National Park, the first live twins were recorded in 1980, but thirty-eight years past before more twins were born. Instances of the birth of twins has been recorded in Uganda and Tanzania. Elephant calves require huge amount of a mother's energy supply, so producing live twins is a tremendous effort, even for an elephant.
