- In Sri Lanka, wild elephants are often killed in train collision accidents along certain railway stretches. A recent accident killed seven elephants, highlighting the enormity of this issue.
- While train-related elephant deaths account for only about 5% of total fatalities, these deaths are mostly preventable and evoke both public attention and anger.
- Various solutions — like reducing the speed of trains in identified collision hotspots, considered the most effective response — have been proposed over the years, but haven’t been successfully implemented.
- Researchers suggest construction of underpasses at collision hotspots, but these plans haven’t gone through due to financial constraints.
COLOMBO — More than a decade ago, Thushari, a young female elephant, born wild and free, would roam the landscapes of Galgamuwa in northwestern Sri Lanka every day with her family in search of water and food, crossing the railway tracks that bisected their territory. On the night of June 17, 2011, the full moon cast a silvery glow over the landscape, illuminating the railway tracks that shimmered under its light. As 9-year-old Thushari and her family approached the crossing, a distant mechanical rumble broke the silence and continued to grow louder — hush … hush — followed by the deafening blare of a train horn. A monstrous figure, with glaring headlights for eyes and smoke billowing from its top, hurtled fast toward them.
The impact was devastating. Thushari and her younger brother were killed instantly. Their mother, gravely wounded, collapsed nearby.
Thushari was a radio-collared elephant, monitored by Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) and the Center for Conservation and Research Sri Lanka (CCR). Her death was a tragic loss — not just for her herd, but for elephant conservation efforts in Sri Lanka as well.
Thushari’s fate was neither the first nor the last. Sri Lanka’s railway tracks continue to claim the lives of wild elephants, with the latest incident in February this year where seven elephants including four calves died. This incident occurred in northwestern Habarana region in Polonnaruwa district, near the Gal Oya junction, another elephant-train collision hotspot.
On Feb. 19, the Meenagaya train, en route to the eastern district of Batticaloa from Colombo, struck a herd of elephants, killing five instantly. Two more elephants succumbed to their fatal injuries later, raising the death toll to seven, according to Sameera Kalingu Arachchi, the veterinary surgeon at DWC who attended to the injured elephants and conducted the post-mortem.
“Head and spinal injuries are common causes of death in train collisions, along with internal damage to organs like the kidneys, liver and lungs. Only a handful of elephants survive such accidents,” Kalingu Arachchi told Mongabay.
Collision hotspots
Every year, around 400 elephants as well as about 100 human lives are lost due to human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. Last year, the main causes of elephant deaths in the country recorded were due to electrocution, locally manufactured explosive-laden baits known as “jaw bombs,” and gunshot wounds, which respectively killed 81, 56 and 51 elephants. With train collisions, the number fluctuates annually, with 2024 recording only seven deaths, but 2023 recording 24 elephant deaths.
While train-related elephant fatalities represent an average of only around 5% of reported elephant deaths in Sri Lanka, they become a significant issue as they capture public attention. Tragic footage by media shows dead elephants and those wounded fighting for their lives get emotional responses from people.
The loss of these majestic creatures, especially reproductively active females, is a grave concern for elephant conservation, especially since most of these deaths could be prevented, said Prithviraj Fernando, chairman of CCR and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution.
A study by the department of zoology and environment sciences in Sri Lanka’s University of Colombo investigated elephant-train collision data from 2010 to 2023 and identified six collision hotspots. These were mainly along the northern and eastern railway tracks: on the eastern Trincomalee railway line, the stretch between the Gal Oya Junction and Trincomalee; on the eastern Batticaloa railway line, between Maho Junction and Batticaloa; and a segment of the northern (Jaffna) railway line, between Maho Junction-Anuradhapura, a stretch in the northwest of Sri Lanka.
The most critical collision hotspot was identified to be the Palugaswewa-Gal Oya Junction stretch, in the Hurulu and Gal Oya Eco Parks region, located between Palugaswewa and Gal Oya, said Tanya Karunasena, lead author of the study and a teaching assistant at the University of Colombo.
Most hotspots were near railroads that passed through or close to protected areas, frequently traveled by elephants, Karunasena said. “We also observed that the majority of accidents occurred during the wet months from October to December and between 18:01 and 06:00,” Karunasena told Mongabay.
The research also disclosed an interesting fact: these accidents generally occur at a significant distance away from the railway station a train has left, indicating that trains attaining a greater speed might be an important contributor to these accidents. Unlike what was believed before, the access to water sources and curvature of the railway lines were not major determinants of the accidents.
Accidents were mostly associated with passenger trains — perhaps because of the frequency of operations — particularly at night.
Solutions
Such accidents often leave officials scrambling for solutions. And with the rise of social media, many propose various ideas to prevent these tragedies. Suggestions range from AI-based monitoring, thermal cameras and solar-powered lighting to trains not operating at night.
However, Fernando, drawing from his extensive experience in elephant conservation, said he believes the most effective solution is constructing underpasses for the animals. “Until that becomes a reality, night trains must slow down when passing through high-risk areas,” he told Mongabay.
The first step in mitigating these accidents is identifying high-risk areas — something that this research has already done. The next crucial step is imposing speed limits along these stretches and, more importantly, ensuring they are strictly enforced, Fernando said.
“But after Thushari’s death, we monitored the speed of night trains along the same route using a GPS carried by a passenger. Unfortunately, the train was speeding at over 75 kilometers per hour [46.6 miles per hour] despite the 25 km/h [15.5 mph] speed limit,” Fernando said. Even with a DWC officer on board to monitor elephant movements and speed compliance, the train driver ignored the restrictions, he said.
Efforts to install warning devices on trains may not be effective, as a train traveling at 75 km/h (46.6 mph) requires nearly a kilometer (0.62 mi) to come to a complete stop after applying the brakes, Fernando said. Likewise, simply having a DWC officer on board is futile without proper enforcement mechanisms imposed in place.
Train collisions causing elephant deaths have remained a conservation concern for India as well. According to statistics, about 47 elephants have died between 2021 and 2024, with the highest number being 17 in the year 2023-24, says Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan, who holds a PhD in animal behavior. Most incidents in the past decade were reported from Assam, Odisha, West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Vijayakrishnan told Mongabay.
In India, a few states such as Tamil Nadu have implemented AI-based elephant surveillance systems to track elephant movement along rail tracks to gather real-time information to avoid potential accidents. However, most of these AI-based solutions are in their nascent stage, and it would take a couple of years to assess their effectiveness in mitigating the problem, Vijayakrishnan said.
The recent tragic loss of the seven elephants has shocked the nation, prompting discussions in the Parliament of Sri Lanka. The government has formed a committee and is seeking public input for better solutions.
However, the pattern so far has been a public outcry and the formation of a government-appointed committee, which are followed by eventual inaction until another tragedy strikes. Environmentalists said they hope that, at the very least, the deaths of these seven elephants will finally lead to pursuing meaningful solutions and enforcement.
Banner image: Elephants crossing the railway track in one of the collision hotspots near Galgamuwa in northwestern Sri Lanka. Image by Banu Mapalagama.
Citation:
Karunasena, W. M. T. L., Fernando, P., Gunasekara, V. R., Wijesinghe, M. R., Weerakoon, D. K. (2024). Assessment of landscape and railway features associated with elephant-train collisions. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385242663_Assessment_of_landscape_and_railway_features_associated_with_elephant-_train_collisions
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