COLOMBO, July 18\u00a0\u2014\u00a0At least three wild elephants were found dead across Sri Lanka on Friday, officials said, a day after six young rescued elephants were returned to the jungle under a conservation drive.<\/p>\n
Wildlife officials said one elephant was run over by a passenger train in the island\u2019s northeast, while two others were found shot dead in the central and eastern regions.<\/p>\n
Elephants are protected by law and considered sacred due to their significance in Buddhist culture, but farmers often kill them to protect their crops.<\/p>\n
Human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka has resulted in the deaths of nearly 200 elephants and 55 people so far this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have launched investigations into the shootings of the two elephants, it looks like the work of local farmers,\u201d a police spokesman in the capital Colombo said.<\/p>\n
The train accident occurred in Gallella, the same area where seven elephants were killed by a locomotive in February, the worst incident of its kind in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
It happened despite speed limits on trains passing through elephant-inhabited forest areas.<\/p>\n
A Sri Lanka railway official said an \u201cinternal investigation has been launched to establish if the driver had violated the speed limit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wildlife authorities released six elephants, aged between five and seven, back into the jungle on Thursday after rehabilitating them under a conservation programme that began in 1998.<\/p>\n
The Elephant Transit Home in Udawalawe, about 210 kilometres southeast of Colombo, cares for rescued animals and eventually returns them to the wild.<\/p>\n
The sanctuary is a major tourist attraction and holds 57 elephants that had been abandoned, injured, or separated from their herds.<\/p>\n
Sri Lankan authorities believe the transit home\u2019s strategy of rewilding rescued elephants, rather than domesticating them, has been successful.<\/p>\n
The home has returned 187 elephants to the wild since 1998.<\/p>\n
Conservation efforts have become increasingly urgent due to the escalating conflict between wild elephants and farmers.<\/p>\n
Official figures from Sri Lanka\u2019s wildlife department show that 4,835 elephants and 1,601 people have been killed in the worsening conflict since 2010. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n
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