An elephant named Sumana has become one of the most eye-catching attractions for visitors to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage.
Sumana was brought to the orphanage after being found alone in the Thirappanaya area of Maradankadawala in Anuradhapura, and is believed to have been separated from the herd and from its mother at a young age. Wildlife officials rescued the calf and handed it over to Pinnawala.
Believed to have been born in 1993, Sumana is now in early middle age by elephant standards and has developed a prominent pair of tusks — the feature that draws most visitors’ attention.
From orphaned calf to attraction
The orphanage credits the animal’s condition to sustained care by its staff and by the Department of National Zoological Gardens, which runs the facility. What arrived as a vulnerable calf that had lost both its mother and its herd has grown into a healthy adult that now draws thousands of visitors from Sri Lanka and overseas each year.
Pinnawala, in the Kegalle District, was established in 1975 to care for orphaned and injured elephants and remains one of the country’s most visited wildlife attractions.
Officials present Sumana’s history as an illustration of why elephant conservation and animal welfare work matters — a single rescue traced from the point of separation in the dry-zone scrub of Anuradhapura through three decades of care.
The case also points to a wider pressure. Calves are separated from their herds in areas where elephant range overlaps with human settlement, and Sri Lanka continues to record high numbers of elephant deaths and human-elephant conflict incidents each year.
