By Shabna Cader
Environmentalists, conservationists and everyone else alike has been highly concerned under various reasons. Jagath Gunewardena is one such environmentalist who spoke of his concerns and opinion on this matter firstly by stating that he believes the results have been exaggerated. “There has to be some sort of an exaggeration because plenty of people like me know that in certain areas in the wild, only small populations of elephants exist but when we take a look at the result sheet of the elephant census, the numbers seems to have escalated. Our data for the past few years in relation to the results of the census differ” he said, voicing the exact concern that Project Director of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Srilal Miththapala also expressed.
“I’m quite suspicious of the numbers too. There has to be a huge error in marking. The number one reason is because the census was done in a matter of three days. My second worry is because it was done through a water hole basis method of counting. This is the most basic of methods and used only to get a rough number. It is used but not for accurate measures and only for estimations. So what I would like to know is the plus or minus details of these figures. It could be much higher or much less. You might miss counting some or even double count, which is certainly true owing to the fact that there were insufficient recourses for the DWC to have completed the census on their own and therefore took on the services of other volunteers and supporters. It is expected that numbers would not be completely accurate when those who are employed are those who are not familiar with this kind of work. Reliability and accuracy are questioned by many.”
Future analysis is going to be based on these figures but what really can be done with numbers? “Counting them is purposeless” said Gunewardena, “what are they going to do now? You cannot believe that every elephant in the island has being counted. There will be a margin of error either way. It’s hard to believe you can give figures with such accuracy when we’re dealing with animals here; animals that do not obey any commands, requests etc. Why is any species counted, when there are average figures of occurrence rates? When it comes to marine mammal conservation and whales for example, do we count the number of whales in the ocean? If these rates are on a downward slope, concern and future action should be over what should be done in order to protect and conserve.”
“I’m quite suspicious of the numbers too. There has to be a huge error in marking. The number one reason is because the census was done in a matter of three days. My second worry is because it was done through a water hole basis method of counting. This is the most basic of methods and used only to get a rough number. It is used but not for accurate measures and only for estimations. So what I would like to know is the plus or minus details of these figures. It could be much higher or much less. You might miss counting some or even double count, which is certainly true owing to the fact that there were insufficient recourses for the DWC to have completed the census on their own and therefore took on the services of other volunteers and supporters. It is expected that numbers would not be completely accurate when those who are employed are those who are not familiar with this kind of work. Reliability and accuracy are questioned by many.”
Future analysis is going to be based on these figures but what really can be done with numbers? “Counting them is purposeless” said Gunewardena, “what are they going to do now? You cannot believe that every elephant in the island has being counted. There will be a margin of error either way. It’s hard to believe you can give figures with such accuracy when we’re dealing with animals here; animals that do not obey any commands, requests etc. Why is any species counted, when there are average figures of occurrence rates? When it comes to marine mammal conservation and whales for example, do we count the number of whales in the ocean? If these rates are on a downward slope, concern and future action should be over what should be done in order to protect and conserve.”
On a tourism point of view, the results reveal that the elephant population is not healthy. Estimations during the early 19th Century reveal that over 10,000 elephants roamed Sri Lanka and unfortunately the number today is just about a half of that. Former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Renton de Alwis voiced that what is important now is how to safeguard these mammals. “We should try and protect our elephant resource as much as possible. It needs to be managed well; what I mean is that we manage visitation both local and foreign. For e.g. the Minneriya Gathering was brought to attention by the tourism board; and today, it has become a huge tourist attraction. If the tourism board can create that kind of awareness, it can therefore do their part in conserving and take on the responsibility of managing the resource that supports them. It is our responsibility to ensure that a fair amount of education and knowledge on how to progress in the future and protect these animals is spread” he said.
The money gone into this census could have been used for a more in-depth project. A wealth of information could have been gained with a more in-depth project, to find out about what the current issues are being faced, knowledge of the habitat of elephants etc. This kind of information could have been used to have a better idea and understanding of the elephant population and then used to come up with solutions to the many problems at hand. Instead, this all seems like a combination of hasty decisions that were met halfway. What can be done with this kind of information? As Gunewardena and Miththapala said, what can be done now?
“They’ve even coming up with the number of males elephants in the wild. Distinguishing a male and female elephant is something that even an expert needs time to do, not just in a matter of minutes and days. Even someone like me with over 25 years of experience would sometimes make mistakes in identifying so this is why I say, that is a sad situation because a lot of errors are involved. Having an idea of what the trends are, are more important than knowing the ultimate figures” added Miththapala.
When questioned about the elephant census results and what the DWC hopes to do with this, H.D. Ratnayake Director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation was on the defensive. He commented that there is a lot of pressure from the media, wildlife experts, environmentalist etc and that the DWC is working on a more detailed report. “We hope to analyse the results further so as to decide how we can benefit from it. The reason we decided to have an elephant census was purely based on conservation purposes and we incline doing just that.” He added that they hope to find solutions for human-elephant conflicts, mitigation purposes, take a look into the habitat of these mammals and actions for proper management in the future.
http://www.nation.lk/2011/09/18/eyefea1.htm
“They’ve even coming up with the number of males elephants in the wild. Distinguishing a male and female elephant is something that even an expert needs time to do, not just in a matter of minutes and days. Even someone like me with over 25 years of experience would sometimes make mistakes in identifying so this is why I say, that is a sad situation because a lot of errors are involved. Having an idea of what the trends are, are more important than knowing the ultimate figures” added Miththapala.
When questioned about the elephant census results and what the DWC hopes to do with this, H.D. Ratnayake Director of the Department of Wildlife Conservation was on the defensive. He commented that there is a lot of pressure from the media, wildlife experts, environmentalist etc and that the DWC is working on a more detailed report. “We hope to analyse the results further so as to decide how we can benefit from it. The reason we decided to have an elephant census was purely based on conservation purposes and we incline doing just that.” He added that they hope to find solutions for human-elephant conflicts, mitigation purposes, take a look into the habitat of these mammals and actions for proper management in the future.
http://www.nation.lk/2011/09/18/eyefea1.htm
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