Follow us

We enjoy building community among our followers and sharing media related to our work. Follow us on Instagram @LankaElephants to catch up with us in the field.

View fullsize Tune into the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom podcast to listen to Executive Director, Dr. Chase LaDue, discuss fostering coexistence between humans and elephants at the Sri Lanka Elephant Project, as well as Ben Jones, Vice President of Conserv
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View fullsize In partnership with the International Elephant Foundation, we’re working to help build capacity for conservation in the communities of north central Sri Lanka. This project has three main goals: 🌱 Establish a community science program that wi
View fullsize The future of elephants in Sri Lanka depends on building empathy, tolerance, and understanding in the communities that live around elephant habitat. Recently, the SLEP field team visited students at Lenawa Primary School to teach them about elephants
View fullsize An elephant’s ability to process and respond to stimuli is finely tuned to their environment. They rely heavily on their sense of smell and hearing to navigate their surroundings, as their highly developed olfactory system allows them to detect
View fullsize Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! Today, we celebrate the crucial role women play in STEM and acknowledge the ongoing efforts to close the gender gap in science. Despite facing systemic barriers, women continue to make significan
View fullsize By monitoring elephants in Minneriya and Kaudulla National Parks, our team is creating a comprehensive database of individuals while also studying their demographics and social behavior. Of particular focus is the behavior of male elephants, due to t
View fullsize Sri Lanka has approximately 6000 wild elephants, the highest concentration in any Asian country. As human developments increase, elephants are pushed into smaller areas, disrupting their historical migratory routes. This has led to a high rate of hum

Community-based conservation

Our work is inspired by the human communities that live alongside elephants and other wildlife in Sri Lanka. Take a look at a video produced by the SLEP team for schoolchildren. Video narration is in Sinhala.

Field guide:
The Elephants of Sri Lanka

We created this field guide for tourists visiting and tour operators working in Sri Lanka. The guide educates readers about how our team identifies individual elephants in the field and encourages responsible wildlife viewing. The guide is currently available in English and Sinhala.

Illustrations by Cliff Casey, design by Marcel Martinez Vargas and Autumn Heigle.

The Elephants of Sri Lanka by The Sri Lanka Elephant Project is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

English version (3.8MB)

Sinhala version (3.9MB)

Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom: The Podcast

Tune into the Wild Kingdom Podcast to listen to SLEP’s Executive Director, Dr. Chase LaDue, discuss his journey to working with elephants, the importance of zoos for wildlife conservation, and fostering coexistence between humans and elephants.

Available to stream on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.