Dambulla, Sri Lanka — “Obviously, it’s war,” says farmer Gunasinghe Kapuga, describing clashes between farmers and wild elephants that raid their fields in Matale district. That blunt assessment reflects a mounting crisis: both people and elephants are dying, and the pressure on both sides keeps increasing.
On many farms, men stand in shallow water preparing paddy fields while keeping an eye out for elephants. When an animal wanders in, villagers chase it off with torches, firecrackers and shouted warnings. Sometimes the elephants turn and attack. Other times farmers escalate: elephants are being killed by gunshot, electrocution and even by explosives hidden in food that shatter their jaws and leave them to starve. Killing elephants is illegal, but the methods — described by Devaka Weerakoon, a zoology professor at Colombo University, as “very inhumane” — underscore farmers’ desperation: a couple of failed crops can ruin a family.
Sri Lanka has about 7,400 Asian elephants living largely outside reserves, amid a population of roughly 22 million people. As farmland has expanded into traditional grazing areas, elephants have both lost wild forage and become attracted to cultivated crops, which are often tastier and more nutritious. At the same time, improvements in irrigation mean many fields are cropped several times a year rather than left fallow, removing months of grazing that used to ease human-wildlife tension.
The consequences are visible in the data. The Wildlife Conservation Authority reports elephant deaths rising from 255 in 2011 to 488 in 2023. Attacks by elephants on people more than tripled in that period, from 60 incidents in 2011 to 188 in 2023. Conservationist Prithiviraj Fernando describes the situation as an ‘‘arms race’’ — elephants adapt to torches and crackers, and farmers eventually turn to firearms.
Government responses have included organized elephant drives: groups using crackers, gunfire and drones to herd animals into national parks, which are ringed by electric fences. But those responses have limits. Elephants learn which parts of a fence don’t deliver shocks — wooden posts, for example — and can manipulate structures to slip past wires. Officials acknowledge a deeper problem: many park areas are already saturated and offer insufficient food, so herds push into villages in search of calories. Manjula Amararathna, a senior director at the Department of Wildlife Conservation, says elephants are drawn to settlements because there isn’t enough food inside forest areas.
Farmers respond with long nights on sentry duty. Across central Sri Lanka, improvised treehouses perch above fields; farmers sit through darkness, throwing crackers and shining lights to deter raiders. Gamini Disanaayake repairs one such platform and describes the constant strain: a night away from the treehouse after winds tore its tin roof left him to find mung bean crops trampled at dawn.
Economic shocks are worsening the conflict. Recent disruptions in global shipping — including a period when the Strait of Hormuz was blocked — have pushed up the cost of fuel and imported fertilizer that Sri Lankan agriculture depends on. Disanaayake says a bag of fertilizer that used to cost the equivalent of about $15 now runs about $37 in his area. That spike followed a string of earlier shocks: a controversial, short-lived government ban on chemical fertilizers that collapsed yields and the country’s subsequent debt crisis and fuel shortages. Cyclones and market swings have also hit incomes. Farmers who borrow to buy inputs and then see crop prices collapse can respond to elephant raids with increased urgency.
There is sympathy for the animals among farmers, who understand the elephants’ plight. “Elephants don’t have anything to eat in the forest, and that’s why they are coming here,” Disanaayake says. Yet he also says he has no alternative for feeding his children — a stark reminder that this is a conflict with two victims.
Authorities and conservationists are testing a mix of strategies. Some officials champion nonlethal, landscape-based measures: creating a new category of protected area that allows farmers to plant only in the rainy season, leaving fields fallow for months to provide grazing for elephants. Other favored tactics include community-based deterrents and improved fence design. Critics argue the government still relies too often on drives and short-term fixes that displace rather than resolve the problem.
The toll — on livelihoods, animal welfare and rural security — is intensifying. Farmers keep watches, mend roofs and make offerings, praying for safety for both their families and the elephants that threaten them. The human cost is immediate: injured and killed villagers, ruined crops and mounting debt. For elephants, the threat is increasingly lethal and savage: firearms, electrocution and poisoned or booby-trapped food.
Experts warn that without coordinated policies addressing habitat loss, park management and the economic resilience of rural communities, clashes will keep worsening. Until then, nightly sentries, improvised treehouses and a fraught mix of tradition and desperation will remain the frontline of Sri Lanka’s growing conflict between people trying to survive and the wild animals trying to eat.