Farmers in central Sri Lanka are facing escalating conflicts with elephants that raid their crops, leading to increasingly deadly encounters. Elephants have learned to dismantle electric fences to access food sources outside national parks.
Key points
Farmers face increasing conflicts with elephants in Sri Lanka.
Elephants dismantle electric fences to access crops.
60% of Sri Lanka's elephants live outside national parks.
Elephants outside parks are generally healthier.
Higher death rates for calves are observed in park populations.
Mentioned in this story
Sri Lanka
Yala National Park
YALA NATIONAL PARK, SRI LANKA, 10TH JULY 2022: A bull male elephant is seen meticulously dismantling an electric fence inside Yala National Park. These large males have no problem breaking through fences but this particular male has developed a delicate technique where he does not even need to break the fence but uses the fence poles to lay the wires flat and then simply step over them. The breaking of fences by male adult elephant is a daily ritual in most parks in Sri Lanka. The fences inside national parks in Sri Lanka keep female elephants and younger elephants inside the parks, male elephants break the fence regularly and access other food sources, some of which are grown by humans. 60 % of Sri Lankas elephants live outside of her national parks and are generally healthier than those inside parks as they have more varied food sources. Conservationist observers in these parks state that many of the females in parks are smaller than females outside of the parks and that there is a higher death rate for calves.
A bull male elephant is seen meticulously dismantling an electric fence inside Yala National Park in Sri Lanka. Elephants are often herded into parks to keep them from eating the crops of farmers, but the pachyderms have figured out how to manipulate the wooden fence poles to lay the wires flat and then step over them.
Brent Stirton/Getty Images/Reportage Archive
Brent Stirton/Getty Images/Reportage Archive
DAMBULLA, Sri Lanka –- On a break, farmer Gunasinghe Kapuga draws on a cigarette and describes relations between farmers and elephants that raid their fields in the central Sri Lankan district of Matale: "Obviously, it's war."
Q&A
What are the main causes of conflict between farmers and elephants in Sri Lanka?
The main causes include elephants raiding crops and breaking through electric fences to access food sources, leading to dangerous encounters.
How do elephants manage to break through electric fences in Sri Lanka?
Elephants have developed techniques to manipulate wooden fence poles, allowing them to lay wires flat and step over the fences without breaking them.
What percentage of Sri Lanka's elephants live outside national parks?
Approximately 60% of Sri Lanka's elephants live outside national parks, where they have access to more varied food sources.
What impact does living outside national parks have on elephants in Sri Lanka?
Elephants living outside national parks tend to be healthier and larger, while those inside parks often face higher mortality rates and smaller sizes.
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He's referring to increasingly deadly encounters between farmers and pachyderms.
Now Kapuga fears that the latest Mideast war will intensify that conflict — because the war is pushing up the price of fuel and fertilizer, so farmers are spending more to plant less. And he believes that means farmers will be more vigilant in attacking elephants who raid their fields: "More elephants will die or more farmers will die."
Already, the stakes are high. Kapuga nods to men digging mud out of shin-deep water, preparing the paddy fields for planting rice. The other day, an elephant wandered onto this very field. Kapuga points to a young man: "He fearlessly chased the elephant away, he ran after it with a flashing torch and threw firecrackers at it," he says. "Some elephants turn around — and attack. It's a really dangerous task."
Farmers plough a rice paddy field in the central Sri Lankan district of Matale, where elephant raids are a serious problem. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Elephants have both lost grazing grounds — and they’re attracted to crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation.
Farmers plough a rice paddy field in the central Sri Lankan district of Matale, where elephant raids are a serious problem. Most of the island's 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country. But governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants' mouths and cause them to die of starvation.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Sometimes, those elephants kill farmers. And farmers kill elephants by gunshot, electrocution and jaw bombs — explosives hidden in food that shatter an elephant's jaws so the animal starves to death. Killing elephants is illegal in Sri Lanka, and yet not only is it happening, but the methods suggest desperation, says Devaka Weerakoon, a zoology professor at Colombo University. "These are very inhumane ways of killing," he says. But "our farmers are not resilient. Two failed crops means they are completely busted."
These encounters represent an increasingly sour chapter in human-elephant relations in Sri Lanka — an island where these animals have long been revered by Buddhist and Hindu communities. Most of the island's 7,400 Asian elephants live freely, near farms and settlements that are home to some 22 million people.
Elephants graze in the Hurulu Eco Park in the central Sri Lankan district of Habarana. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but about a third live in national parks, but officials and conservationists say there’s not enough food for herds there to eat, and so they frequently break out to raid farmers’ fields, destroying their crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation.
Elephants graze in the Hurulu Eco Park in the central Sri Lankan district of Habarana. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
The data illustrates the severity of this burgeoning crisis. Sri Lanka's wildlife conservation authority shows an escalation from 255 elephants killed in 2011 to 488 killed in 2023. Elephant attacks on farmers have more than doubled: from 60 in 2011 to 188 in 2023.
What's driving the conflict?
One reason for the trend is the changing nature of farming in Sri Lanka.
Traditionally, farmers have relied on rainy season precipitation to water their crops. They'd plant once a year — and say it was relatively easy to chase elephants away. The land would then lie fallow until the next rainy season so elephants could graze without threatening the farmers' livelihood.
Over the past few decades, improved irrigation methods have enabled farmers to cultivate multiple crops a year on the same plot of land. Those farmed crops are attractive to elephants, say experts, because they're tastier and more nutritious than what they'd consume elsewhere.
The elephants raid the fields — and the farmers retaliate. "It's sort of an arms race," says Prithiviraj Fernando, chairman of the Sri Lanka-based Center for Conservation and Research, and an elephant expert. The elephants, he says, adapt to the firecrackers and torches brandished by farmers. Finally, he says, you end up with farmers "shooting the elephants."
The government has long deployed "elephant drives" as a solution — using fire crackers, gunfire and drones to corral elephants and drive them into national parks, which are surrounded by electric fences to keep the animals penned in and away from farmlands.
But elephants learn pretty quickly which parts of a fence won't shock them — like the wooden posts that keep the fence wires up. And they're motivated to escape, experts and government officials acknowledge, because there's not enough food in the forests. "They are coming toward villages, because inside forest areas, the elephant density [is] already saturated," says Manjula Amararathna, a senior director at Sri Lanka's department of wildlife conservation.
Sleepless elephant nights
As tensions continue to rise, farmer Gaamini Disanaayake, who lives near the village of Bambaragahawatte in central Sri Lanka, says fear of elephants is keeping him awake at night.
Literally.
Gamini Disanaayake repairs his treehouse which perches over a field in the central Sri Lankan district of Naula, where elephant raids are a serious problem. These treehouses dot rural Sri Lanka, where farmers keep sentry overnight, to chase out elephants who typically raid crops at night. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Elephants have both lost grazing grounds — and they’re attracted to crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation. Image by Diaa Hadid, Matale, Sri Lanka, April 2026
Gamini Disanaayake repairs his treehouse, which perches over a field in the central Sri Lankan district of Naula. These treehouses dot rural Sri Lanka, where farmers keep sentry overnight to chase out elephants who typically raid crops after dark.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Disanaayake says the previous evening, he encountered an elephant in his field, hurled some firecrackers and it went away. He'd spotted the elephant from a rickety treehouse of rough nailed planks some 12 feet off the ground.
He sentries here through the night. Thousands of other farmers perch in variations of these treehouses, which dot the landscape of central Sri Lanka.
Disanaayake says elephant raids are just one hardship for the island's farmers. They've struggled through back-to-back-crises — including a sudden government ban on fertilizers to prevent hard currency from being spent abroad at a time when it risked defaulting on its debts. It was reversed after an outcry as the ban collapsed crop yields. Shortly afterward, fuel prices surged as the country defaulted on its debts. Then last year, a cyclone smashed through fields just after planting began.
A treehouse perches over a field in the central Sri Lankan district of Matale, where elephant raids are a serious problem. These treehouses dot rural Sri Lanka, where farmers keep sentry overnight, to chase out elephants who typically raid crops at night. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Elephants have both lost grazing grounds — and they’re attracted to crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation.
A treehouse that's used by a farmer to keep an eye out for elephants who come to raid crops.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
"When those crises happened we had money and enough food to eat," says Disanaayake. But then came the Mideast war. "We are in such a desperate situation," he says.
Although fighting largely subsided weeks ago, the Strait of Hormuz, remains blocked. Sri Lanka is heavily reliant on fuel and fertilizer that was shipped through the strait.
The price of a bag of fertilizer has more than doubled in Disanaayake's area, from the equivalent of $15 dollars, to $37 dollars.
Disanaayake says he borrowed money to buy enough fertilizer for his mung bean crop — then bean prices collapsed as the market flooded with produce.
Gamini Disanaayake repairs his treehouse which perches over a field in the central Sri Lankan district of Naula, where elephant raids are a serious problem. These treehouses dot rural Sri Lanka, where farmers keep sentry overnight, to chase out elephants who typically raid crops at night. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Elephants have both lost grazing grounds — and they’re attracted to crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation.
Farmer Gamini Disanaayake repairs the treehouse he uses to watch for elephant raids on his crops.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
He echoes what farmer Kapuga says — that the Mideast war will make farmers more desperate to keep elephants away from their diminished supply of crops.
But he sympathizes with the elephants' dilemma: "Elephants don't have anything to eat in the forest, and that's why they are coming here. We feel sorry for them."
The problem is, he says, "we also don't have any other way to feed our children. This is a conflict with two victims."
The rain and wind pick up. The tin sheets of the treehouse roof flap wildly.
The next day, Dissanayake tells us that the winds ripped off the treehouse roof. So he had to sleep at home. He returned to his field at dawn to find that elephants had trampled his mung bean crops.
Near his field, he shows us the electric fence that marks the boundary of a national park. An elephant's muddy footprint is on a wooden pole of the fence, pushed to the ground. Dissanayake quickly gathers palm leaves he has woven together and begins repairing his treehouse roof.
"It's a huge, huge, difficult task to manage this issue," says Amararathna, the senior director at Sri Lanka's department of wildlife conservation. He says they're deploying methods that conservationists champion, like creating a new category of national park where farmers can practice traditional methods of growing crops only during rainy season, which allows elephants to graze on fallow land for months after a harvest. Critics say the government is still also deploying methods that they argue are counterproductive, like those elephant drives.
Gamini Disanaayake shows an offering he is making to the local demigod that is worshiped in these parts of central Sri Lanka, where elephant raids are a serious problem. Conflict between farmers and elephants has grown increasingly deadly in Sri Lanka. Most of the island’s 7,400 elephants freely roam across the country — but governments have transformed traditional elephant grazing areas to farmlands. Elephants have both lost grazing grounds — and they’re attracted to crops. Farmers are being killed as they try protect their fields; elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and by bombs concealed in food that shatter elephants’ mouths and cause them to die, painfully, of starvation.
Gamini Disanaayake, a farmer in Sri Lanka, shows an offering he is making to the local demigod in the hope that his prayer will keep elephants from raiding his fields.
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Diaa Hadid/NPR
Back in Bambaragahawatte, farmer Gamini Disanaayake has returned to his field with his wife. He's trying another way to keep elephants at bay: They're making an offering to the divine to protect their field — rice boiled in sweetened coconut milk that was consecrated to the Buddha before planting began. It's wrapped up in a leaf alongside a sweet banana. It's for King Mahasin, a demigod worshipped through the valleys and forests in this area.
"I'm praying to protect my field, my life," Disanaayake smiles, "and the elephant, that he too, won't be harmed."
