Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka

This is a unique place for visitors as this may be the only place on the planet that one can see such a large herd of captive elephants from weeks old to parents to grand parents old more than 50 years. Pinnawala Elephant Orphange, the conservativation breeding center run by the National Zoological Gardens of Sri Lanka was established in 1975.

All these lelphants were brought to the orphange at a very young age due to various reasons like death of the mother or because of the separatist war in the north-east.

There daily rituals begin at 7am in the mornings after they are fed and given milk they are taken to the river ‘Ma Oya’ the largest river in Sri Lanka in terms of volume of water it carries. Here they drink bathe and are brushed in the shallow pools of this flat rocky river. There are nearly 90 elephants in the orphange presently. Sama, a 22 years old lost her leg due to a mine blast during the separatist war, tugs along the herd to make it to the river and one can see how the other herd members wait for her to join them in this ritual.

Visitors are seen feeding and getting themslves photographed with the Pachyderms.