A wild elephant calf of about seven years died on Thursday morning after striking an electric line strung illegally around a home garden in the Menikdeniya area of Welikanda, Polonnaruwa.
Wildlife officers said the animal was electrocuted by a line that had been run without authorisation around the perimeter of a property, Hiru News reported.
The post-mortem examination is to be carried out by the Giritale wildlife veterinary officer, Kalindu Arachchi.
The owner of the land has been arrested on suspicion of causing the death of a wild elephant by illegally running an electric line, and is to be produced before the Polonnaruwa Magistrate’s Court.
A warning made three days earlier
The death follows a warning that this desk reported on Wednesday. The Society for Conservation of Wild Elephants in Sri Lanka wrote to the Director General of the Department of Wildlife Conservation on 2 November about more than ten illegal electric traps in the Welgala area of Ibbagamuwa, allegedly wired into the main electricity supply along natural elephant movement routes.
That letter urged immediate raids and arrests, and explicitly warned against waiting for another elephant to die before acting. The Menikdeniya death is a separate incident in a different district, roughly 100 km to the east, and no reporting connects the two. It is recorded here because the hazard described is the same: a live line, unauthorised, placed where elephants move.
Illegal electrified lines are a recurring cause of elephant deaths in Sri Lanka. In June, a wild elephant and a calf died on an illegally wired fence at farmland in the Maligawila area of Okkampitiya.
What is not yet reported
The filing does not say whether the line was intended to deter elephants or to protect crops from smaller animals, whether it was connected to the mains or to a generator, or what charge the landowner will face. It gives no name or age for the arrested person and no date for the court appearance. Nor does it state whether the carcass was a male or female animal.