Sri Lanka’s armed forces and its wildlife service are to be joined into a single elephant-protection structure, under decisions taken at the Ministry of Environment on Friday. A dedicated operations room will be set up at Army Headquarters, soldiers will be trained by wildlife officers in elephant behaviour, and joint emergency raids will be intensified in conflict-hit areas.
The meeting was chaired by Environment Minister Dr. Dammika Patabendi and Deputy Minister Anton Jayakody, with Army Commander Lieutenant General K. V. Nilantha P. Premarathne, senior environment officials, representatives of military intelligence and drone operations units, and voluntary environmental organisations attending, the Daily Mirror reported.
What was agreed
- The Department of Wildlife Conservation will train military personnel in elephant behaviour and the procedures to follow when handling wild elephants in the field.
- The military will provide accommodation and field research facilities inside military camps for wildlife officers working on conservation.
- A dedicated operations room at Sri Lanka Army Headquarters will bring together wildlife officers, veterinarians and Tri-Forces personnel to coordinate field operations, monitor vulnerable elephants and run emergency responses.
- Special military security detachments will monitor the movements of vulnerable tuskers identified in high-risk areas.
- Joint emergency raids will be intensified, with legal measures strengthened against elephant killing and against hakka patas — the improvised explosive baits that detonate in an animal’s mouth, the Daily Mirror reported separately.
- A new reporting mechanism for wildlife crimes is to be introduced to speed up information sharing between agencies.
- Weekly data evaluations and monthly progress reviews will assess the programme.
The crowd problem
One agreed measure is unusual enough to be worth isolating: the meeting gave “special attention” to managing public gatherings when an elephant falls ill or is injured, because crowds and other disturbances obstruct wildlife officers and veterinarians trying to treat the animal.
That is not an abstract concern. It is a direct read-across from the death of the tusker Kavantissa, whose prolonged and heavily attended attempt at treatment this month ended in failure and triggered a presidential committee of inquiry, an opposition call for a parliamentary select committee, and the resignation of the attending veterinary surgeon.
The scale it answers
Parliament was told this month that 455 wild elephants died in 2025, a 17% rise on the previous year, against a national population surveyed at 7,451 animals. Elephants killed 160 people in the same year.
A programme that puts soldiers, drone units and military intelligence behind the wildlife department is a substantial escalation of state resources. Whether it reduces those numbers is a question for next year’s figures, not this announcement.
A single-outlet report
Both filings above come from the Daily Mirror, which published them five minutes apart as separate stories about the same meeting. This desk searched Ada Derana, NewsFirst, Daily News, the Daily FT, the Sunday Times, Colombo Gazette and the government news agency for independent accounts and found none at the time of writing.
No cost, funding source, start date or staffing figure was reported for the operations room or the training programme, and no timetable was given for the legal amendments.
Sources: Military personnel to receive special training in elephant protection — Daily Mirror, October 23, Joint raids planned to curb elephant killings and wildlife crimes — Daily Mirror, October 23.