Fw: [AR-News] Some good news: Tsunami kills few animals in Sri Lanka

December 29, 2004

Tsunami kills few animals in Sri Lanka

By GEMUNU AMARASINGHE, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004 03:21 AM (PST)

YALA NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka (AP) - Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka

expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale

animal deaths from the tsunamis - 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 Sunday's 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 destroyed.

" 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 391

square miles, but only 56 square miles are open to tourists.

" All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Secondly, it

is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. " ~ Arthur

Schopenhauer, German philosopher

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