African elephants for Kandy Esala Perahera

The Kandy Esala Perahera has become the most important cultural event of the country, if not in the world. The gracefulness of dancers, quality of costumes and management of perahera has showing vast improvement in the recent past. All these have improved its splendour by several fold under the stewardship of the current Diyawadana Nilame, Neranjan Wijeratne.

However it is sad to note that the number of elephants participating in the perahera is dwindling with every passing year.

Despite the clamour to capture elephants from the remaining jungles or for those orphaned elephants at Pinnawale, we should protect them at any cost for posterity. But there is a way out from this problem. At present we have Indian and Thai elephants participating in the pageant. In addition to these Asian elephants, we can also explore the possibility to obtain African elephants.

African elephants are no less intelligent than Asian elephants. They are trained and used in circuses would over. However at present hundreds of African elephants are culled (shot dead) in some African countries to control elephant population. This is particularly so at KRUGER National Park in South Africa. Here whole elephant families — Mother, daughter, male calves are shot dead in large numbers to keep a sustainable population of elephants in the park every year.

If a diplomatic effort is made by our country these young calves could be brought here to use in our religious festivals.

I kindly request the presidential commission appointed to find elephants for religious institutes to focus their attention on this matter.