SRI LANKA: RAVANA FALLS AND THE UDAWALAWE ELEPHANT TRANSIT HOME

RAVANA FALLS:

After leaving our hilltop hotel in Ella, we headed down to lower (and hotter) elevations. Our first stop was at 85-foot-tall Ravana Falls just outside of Ella. We were visiting during the dry season, so they were somewhat reduced from their peak but still quite impressive:

Two tourists were swimming in the pool at the base of the main falls, even though a sign warned "Avoid Bathing" and "Do Not Climb The Rock":

Looking back towards the main road from the falls:

A tourist shopping spot occupies a wide spot in the road near the falls parking area. Note the Pepsi billboard on the right. I think Pepsi is running ahead of Coke in Sri Lanka:

This man was shucking corn and cooking it in a pot to sell to visitors:

UDAWALAWE ELEPHANT TRANSIT HOME:

We had hoped to visit an elephant camp similar to one we had gone to in Thailand, but Lanka Trackers is emphatically opposed to such organizations where animals are treated like pets rather than the wild animals they are, often shackled, taught to do tricks, etc. In place of such a visit, Sanjay took us to the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home. Udawalawe is a national park, and this site within it was opened in 1995 to deal with elephants--mostly babies--that are orphaned or injured.  These elephants are brought to the transit home and cared for until they are ready to be released back into the wild. Transit home elephants are free to roam, are never chained up, and have minimal human contact.  

We were welcomed by a ghostly elephant skeleton:

I don't think of elelphants as having toes, do you?

Truly, if I could find one of these elephant benches in California, I would buy it:

Yeah, I really need some elephant decor in my yard:

The Elephant Transit Home is open to visitors at 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, 3:00 PM, and 6:00 PM for the elephant feedings during those times. We were there for the 12:00 session. We were seated on some stadium-style metal bleachers separated from a large field by a wide stream and wire fencing. Signs told us to be quiet:

When we were there, the Transit Home had about 55 elephants, most between the ages of 6 weeks and 6 months old. However, before any of the babies were brought out, this big guy came out all by himself and was allowed to eat without any other elephants present.

He was walking strangely, and we noticed that he was wearing what appeared to be a boot on his back leg. Sanjay told us later that it is actually an artificial leg! He was caught in a trap as a youngster and they had to amputate his lower leg. To keep him mobile, he was fitted with a prosthesis: 

This elephant will live his entire life in the center. Apparently he is very crabby and hard on the other elephants, so he is pretty much kept by himself:

The stump of his rear leg appears to fit into a hard plastic bucket:

His prosthesis didn't keep him from strolling around the field: 

After the amputee was herded into a nearby field, other elephants began to wander in. As soon as they came through the gate, they bee-lined for the feeding station on the right side of the enclosure:

Because of the lighting, it was hard to get a very good photo, but you can see the white tubing below that is put into the elephants mouth. It is attached to a big plastic jug filled with a special "milk" formula.

Alternately, a few of the smallest elephants were fed directly from the jugs out in the middle of the enclosure:

Perhaps there is too much competition for these babies over in the stall:

The two babies went through their jugs of milk quite fast and then pestered the feeder for more:

After they are done with their milk, the elephants wander off into the enclosure:

They are free to chat with each other:

. . . or eat the greens that are spread out on the ground for them:

. . . or butt heads and quarrel, as all kids do:

One of the ways an elephant ends up in the home is when poachers and trouble-makers light firecrackers in the vicinity of a herd. It terrorizes the elephants, and they take off running in all directions. Mothers and babies often get separated by fairly long distances. In other scenarios, the mother elephant dies or is killed by poachers. 

PBS notes, "Sadly, should a calf be orphaned before it's two years old, even its aunts can't do enough to keep it alive. How long do elephants stay with their mothers? On average for 16 years--just about the same amount of time that human children rely on their parents." Elephants aren't even weaned until they are between 5 and 10 years old.

Typically, a rescued elephant stays at the transit home for about five years before being reintroduced into the wild. A tracking device is placed on the released animals so that scientists can make sure they are assimilated into a herd.

As mentioned in an earlier post, not all Asian elephants have tusks, and the number seems to be getting fewer, perhaps because those elephants that do have tusks are targets for poachers, and so the genetics for "tuskers," as they are called, is not being passed on at the same rate as for non-tuskers:

Eventually there were quite a few elephants sharing the space in the enclosure. You can see the front fence of our seating and the stream separating us from the elephants in the photo below:

The fees from entry tickets cover some of the costs of caring for the elephants, but there are various other ways the Elephant Transit Home raises funds. For example, visitors can "adopt" a baby elephant and pay for its care. Also, a sign on one of the buildings notes that it is "The Milk Processing Center, designed, rebuilt, and renovated by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Center for the Study of Asian Elephant at Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, with funds from Feld Entertainment, Inc., December 2013."  (Note: This circus company went out of business in May 2017.)

On our way out, we passed this poor dog, which didn't have much hair and appeared to be pretty sunburned. It looks like animals other than elephants need some rescuing too!