Govt. Analyst’s report on poisoned jumbos to be released soon

By Shanika Sriyananda

The Government Analyst’s Department is to soon submit its report on the mysterious deaths of seven elephants in Habarana to the Kekirawa Magistrate Court.

In September, six female elephants and one male elephant were found dead of mysterious circumstances in the Thumbikulam reserve in Habarana and experts from the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWLC), in their preliminary investigation had ruled that the herd of elephants had died due to the ingestion of poisonous chemicals. 

The post-mortem was held at the Thumbikulam forest reserve in Hirieadunna Habarana, where they found the elephant carcasses, by a team of DWLC veterinary surgeons led by the DWLC’s Senior Veterinary Surgeon Dr. Chandana Jayasinghe.

“We have received the post-mortem specimen of the seven elephants and we are in the progress of analysing the body parts to check whether they have any toxic substances in them,” Government Analyst Ariyananda Welianga told the Daily FT.

He said that since there were many body parts that had been sent for testing, it would take time but the department’s experts would issue their final analysis soon. “We are working on it now and we will be able to issue a final analysis on the toxic substances that caused the elephants’ deaths once laboratory tests are done,” he said.

When contacted, DWLC Director General Chandana Sooriyabandara said the DWLC-appointed three-member committee had already confirmed that the main cause of the seven deaths was poisoning by a toxic substance.

He said the DWLC was waiting for the Government Analyst’s report, which would be submitted to Court, to take further action when the identity of the chemicals that had killed the seven elephants was uncovered. 

“We are waiting to proceed with our investigations once the reports from the Government Analyst and the Institute and Faculty of Veterinary Science of the University of Peradeniya submit their final reports to Court,” he said.

The DWLC Director General said that if it was a man-made poison, the DWLC had the power to apprehend the culprits under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance.

“The DWLC is waiting for the two reports before we proceed with our investigation,” he said.

The DWLC’s official data reveals that 559 elephants and 163 people have died in the last 21 months due to the human-elephant conflict while 293 elephants have been killed during the first nine months of 2019. A total of 319 elephants were killed last year. 

With these alarming numbers of deaths due to the human-elephant conflict and other reasons such as poaching for ivory, the Centre for Environmental Justice has urged the Government to consider the killing of the seven elephants as a criminal case and to hand it over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for further investigations to be conducted.