Despite the passage of nearly a year, the results of Sri Lanka’s nationwide elephant census remain unreleased due to complaints of irregularities in the process.
The census, conducted from August 17 to 19 last year, involved 3,130 survey centres across the island.
Environment Minister Dr. Dammika Patabendi stated that the report will be made public soon and acknowledged that some environmentalists had raised concerns regarding the accuracy of the data collection.
He assured that these allegations are being reviewed before the final report is released.
The last official elephant census in Sri Lanka was conducted in 2011, estimating a population of around 6,000 elephants.
Sri Lanka continues to be recognized as having one of the highest elephant population densities in Asia.
