Elephant Transit Home

The Elephant Transit Home, run by Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation, is a unique orphanage whose mission is to release orphaned Asian elephants back into the wild.  Most of the elephants at the Transit Home were orphaned due to Human Elephant Conflict.  Since opening in 1995, over 90 orphans have been freed in Udawalawe […]

Human Elephant Conflict

Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) is a major threat to the survival of Asian elephants.  Due to loss and fragmentation of habitat, elephants and people often find themselves in deadly or injurious conflict. In most cases, a wild herd will roam onto a farmer’s land in search of food.  It only takes one crop raid by […]

Updates…

June 2014   On this visit, we spent four amazing days in the field working on a new project. During that time, we observed Vibhi in the free range area. We were delighted to see his confidence is very high! Although usually quiet and slow, he can be bold and assertive when he wants. Vibhi is certainly […]

Vibhi’s story

Three-month old Vibhi was rescued in mid-2011 from an abandoned well near the Anuradhapura area of North-Central Sri Lanka. Fortunately, Vibhi arrived at the orphanage in good condition and had a smooth transition to cow’s milk formula.  An older female orphan named Neela quickly took little Vibhi under her wing.  Neela became Vibhi’s allomother.  An […]