It was like any other afternoon. The volunteers were all up in the two tree huts situated in the elephant corridor waiting patiently for elephants to show up. Deciding that elephants weren’t going to show up we headed out driving over the WG tank bund to Godaulpotha.

As we slowly crawled along the road that led to Namini Oya a solitary bull was feeding a short distance from the track. Stopping the vehicles we were observing the bull when we heard roaring and trumpeting emanating from deep within the forest in the distant. We decided to head in the directions where the elephants were calling from. The three Land Rovers in convoy headed off the track into unknown territory with Vijay seated on the hood acting as pathfinder and navigator.

We were soon in a vast wooded grassland driving blind. And then suddenly there were three large herds of elephants spread out in the wooded glade. There were easily close to or over 50 elephants. Some really large females were in these herds. One herd seeing the vehicles bunched together to stare and then retreated a short distance and fed. Soon a massive bull strolled into view and started moving from one herd to another obviously checking for estrous females. He was massive and easily towered over the largest female by a meter and half.

A young immature bull took it upon himself to intimidate us with displacement behaviors that were quite amusing to watch. Gradually the herds and the bull faded into the woodlands and we decided to head back since dusk was setting fast and it would be difficult in the waning light to find our tire tracks back to the dirt road that we had left behind about a mile away.

Photo Credits:

Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society

Big, rumbling thanks to our Corporate Partners for their kind support and to everyone who has donated and supported our wildlife conservation efforts!
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