In total 318 elephants died last year as a result of the human-elephant conflict. Compared to that, 407 elephants died in 2019, the Department of Wildlife Conservation said on Wednesday, January 6.
Last year, 112 people were killed due to elephant attacks, compared to 122 in 2019, data from the Wildlife Department showed.
Compared to 2019, there is a clear decline in the number of elephants killed due to the human-elephant conflict in 2020. The number of human lives lost to the Human-Elephant conflict has also declined last year, compared to 2019, Chandana Sooriyabandara, the Director-General at the Department of Wildlife Conservation pointed out.
According to Director-General of Wildlife, this is as a result of educating the people in the areas where the human-elephant conflict is prominent.
At present electric fences covering an area of 4500 km are active island wide, to prevent elephants from encroachment, the Department of Wildlife Conservation further noted.
According to the department, there exists a need to erect electric fences to cover another 1000 km.
Furthermore, around 4000 officers from the Civil Defence Force have been assigned to maintain the electric fences.
