Sixth Sense Apparently Saves Animals in Sri Lanka

December 29, 2004

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YALA NATIONAL PARK, SRI LANKA, December 29, 2004: Wildlife officials

in Sri Lanka expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no

evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend's massive

tsunami -- indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming

and fled to higher ground. An Associated Press photographer who flew

over Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw

abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a

single animal corpse. Floodwaters from the tsunami swept into the

park, uprooting trees and toppling cars onto their roofs -- one red

car even ended up on top of a huge tree -- but the animals

apparently were not harmed and may have sought out high ground, said

Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, whose Jetwing Eco Holidays ran a hotel

in the park. "This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of

humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal," said Wijeyeratne,

whose hotel in the park was totally destroyed in Sunday's tidal

surge. "Maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth

sense," Wijeyeratne said. Yala, Sri Lanka's largest wildlife

reserve, is home to 200 Asian Elephants, crocodile, wild boar,

water buffalo and gray langur monkeys. The park also has Asia's

highest concentration of leopards. The Yala reserve covers an

area of 391 square miles, but only 56 square miles are open to

tourists.

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