{"id":378364,"date":"2025-08-27T19:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/378364\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T19:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:08:12","slug":"compelling-image-of-elephant-wading-through-sea-of-junk-in-sri-lanka-features-in-global-photography-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/378364\/","title":{"rendered":"Compelling image of elephant wading through sea of junk in Sri Lanka features in\u00a0global photography competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Toxic Tip is among the highly commended entries to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Photo: Lakshitha Karunarathna\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/7b0d1c77-b519-4999-b0eb-770dcd3dffc1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Toxic Tip is among the highly commended entries to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Photo: Lakshitha Karunarathna<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A compelling photo of an elephant wading through a sea of junk has been described as a \u201ccall to conscience\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The shot by Lakshitha Karunarathna, entitled \u201cToxic Tip\u201d, is among the highly commended entries in the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Mr Karunarathna is a wildlife photo\u00adgrapher from Sri Lanka, and his image captures an elephant scavenging at a waste site in Ampara, a town in the east of the country.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Toxic Tip is among the highly commended entries to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Photo: Lakshitha Karunarathna\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/7b0d1c77-b519-4999-b0eb-770dcd3dffc1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Toxic Tip is among the highly commended entries to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Photo: Lakshitha Karunarathna<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Today&#8217;s News in 90 Seconds,  Wednesday, August 27<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Although the photo at first appears a beautiful, colourful collage, once the viewer realises it is an elephant making its way through rubbish to find food, it takes on a new meaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">On Mr Karunarathna\u2019s Instagram, a statement read: \u201cThis haunting image isn\u2019t just a photograph, it\u2019s a call to conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It was highly commended in the photo\u00adjournalism category. The photographer has, the judges noted, \u201cdocumented human\u2013elephant conflict in Sri Lanka\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It added: \u201cThis image is the result of months of meticulous observation at two open rubbish tips, where herds regularly forage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cAround 20 elephants died over an eight-year period at a single site in Ampara after consuming indigestible food wrappers and other plastic waste.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cAlongside global efforts to reduce plastic use, conservationists stress the urgent need to secure landfills and prevent wildlife from accessing harmful materials.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toxic Tip is among the highly commended entries to the 61st Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Photo:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[2311,459,106119,70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-378364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-instagram","10":"tag-laura-lynott","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115102305893480421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}