COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government will not allow the capture of elephants and having them transported overseas following concerns that the elephant population was increasing in the island country, a local media report said here Wednesday.
Minister of Sustainable Development and Wild Life Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said that capturing and sending elephants overseas was a a violation of the world wild life regulations and Sri Lanka would not grant permit for this.
He said Sri Lanka would next year carry out a census to obtain an accurate figure of all the wild elephants in the country.
In response to concerns raised on the human-elephant conflict, Perera said that the government was addressing the issue but the main reason that such conflicts occurred was due to a haphazard manner in which forests were being cleared.
Between 2010 to 2017, more than 25 people died as a result of wild elephant attacks in Sri Lanka while around 57 elephants also died during this period.