Data debunks spike in elephant killings, points at media hype

(Mongabay) In recent months, elephants have stolen the spotlight yet again in Sri Lanka’s mainstream and social media.

- 

The surge in attention to them began when a series of deadly train collisions killed several elephants, followed by the agonizing death of the iconic tusker Bhahiya, whose final days were made into emotional videos.

Bhahiya’s death triggered a wave of media coverage, with fresh reports of elephant deaths stoking public outrage and fueling perceptions of a coordinated killing spree.

Speculation quickly filled the vacuum. Some people claimed organized crime rings were behind these deaths — where it was even touted that snipers were used — to harvest tusks or to eliminate crop raids by the elephants. Adding to the mix, and previously unheard of, was a new breed of environmentalists putting forward the argument that elephants were being killed for bushmeat, although these claims were not backed by evidence.

The uproar reached Sri Lanka’s parliament and resulted in the minister of environment, Dammika Patabendi, giving multiple statements, both in the parliament and to the media. He also visited elephants wounded by gunfire and said that possibly two “organized waves” of killings had occurred this year. He urged the island country’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate, insisting that farmers were not responsible for elephant killings but that framing these incidents was part of a broader conspiracy. Meanwhile, the director general of the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC), Sri Lanka’s state agency mandated to protect the country’s flora and fauna, also announced a separate inquiry.

Despite the headlines and social media hype, the analysis of data paints a different picture. A Mongabay analysis of DWC records from the past five years shows the situation to be different. By July end this year, 245 elephant deaths had been recorded.