Elephants gather at the Elephant Transit Home inside Sri Lanka’s Udawalawe National Park. Here, elephants receive medical attention, often from attacks and traps set by humans, before being released back into the wild.

Humans and elephants are struggling to coexist. Both are dying at alarming rates

Photographs by Federico Borella
Story by Tristen Rouse, CNN
Published April 21, 2024

Editor’s Note: “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper” features an inside look at the fatal conflict playing out between elephants and mankind in Sri Lanka. “Elephant Vs. Man” with CNN's Nick Paton Walsh premieres Sunday, April 21, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.

Photographer Federico Borella was working with a group of Sri Lankan park rangers last summer who are typically responsible for scaring off elephants that come too close to human settlements. One morning, they were called to the scene of a death.

Sarath Wijesinghe, a 51-year-old civil defense force officer, had gone out to turn off the electric fence surrounding his village. The fences, intended to prevent elephants from raiding homes for food, are activated during the night and turned off during the day to allow farmers to come and go from the village. As Wijesinghe switched off the electricity, he was attacked and killed by an elephant.

Borella, an Italian photographer focused on documenting environmental issues, was in Sri Lanka to photograph the mortal and material fallout of human and elephant interactions. Amidst a crowd of hundreds — people from surrounding villages who had come to see the aftermath of the morning’s attack — he photographed Wijesinghe’s body as it was wrapped with linen cloth.

Park rangers examine the body of Sarath Wijesinghe after he was killed by an elephant.

“This is probably the saddest thing I saw,” Borella said of his time in Sri Lanka, much of which was spent photographing people who had survived encounters with elephants and efforts to mitigate attacks. In Wijesinghe’s death, “I saw the issue directly.”

Wijesinghe is just one of many who lost their lives to elephants last year. Elephants in Sri Lanka killed at least 169 people in 2023, according to the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society, a conservation organization in the country. In that same period, humans killed 476 elephants.

The deadly conflict is driven by human encroachment. As humans continue to move into areas already inhabited by elephants, homes and farms are built adjacent to elephant corridors, centuries-old pathways used by elephants to move in search of food and water.

Elephants under the care of the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage bathe in the Maya Oya River.

A ranger at Wilpattu National Park loads a rifle with non-lethal bullets. Villages in the region can call rangers through an emergency number, who use the non-lethal ammunition to ward off elephants.

It’s a problem that’s not new and not limited to a single country. Researchers have found that since 1700 — when expanded European colonization led to more logging, more roads and more farming — elephants across Asia have lost nearly two-thirds of their habitat. But the issue is particularly felt in Sri Lanka, which is home to an elephant population more than twice what experts would expect given the habitat now available to them.

Borella began photographing human-elephant conflict as part of a larger interest in how human expansion, deforestation and urbanization make people more present in the lives of wild animals.

“Since we are the most powerful species in the world, we think we have the right to do whatever we want, to conquer everything,” Borella said. “Especially against animals.”

Matushan, 27, stands outside his home, four months after it was destroyed by an elephant. The elephant, looking for rice and salt, caved in wall of the home, rendering it uninhabitable for Matushan and his family.

A picture of Nirupama Lakshani, 5, who was killed by an elephant in 2017, while she and her grandmother were walking to school.

J.M. Muthubanda, 67, was attacked by an elephant in 2022 while working in the mine near his home. He spent five months in the hospital, and can now no longer work due to his injuries. He is seen here with his nephew.

Over the course of two trips to Sri Lanka, Borella focused his attention on the consequences of the conflict. Sitting on a porch, speaking through a translator, he listened as Mallika Herath cried, describing the elephant attack that disabled her and killed her 5-year-old granddaughter, Nirupama Lakshani, while the two walked to school.

Borella said he spent hours listening to her story before he finally asked to photograph a picture of Nirupama. The young girl stands out in Borella’s mind. Most victims of elephant attacks are adult farmers.

“I think this is one of the youngest victims,” he said.

A man closes an electric fence around his village. Electric fences, put up around villages and switched on every evening at 6 p.m., are one way some villages are attempting to keep elephants out.

A lot of attacks on humans come from elephants breaking into homes in search of food, Borella said. Many homes in Sri Lanka have a specific room used to store rice, which elephants can smell from miles away. Using their massive size, elephants can collapse walls onto sleeping families, destroying entire homes to get at the food inside.

This is almost exactly what happened to W.M. Disananyake Wasala, another survivor Borella photographed. Attacked in his backyard by an elephant trying to get into his house, Wasala’s leg had to be amputated due to the injuries he sustained.

Talking about the attack, what surprised Borella was that Wasala didn’t seem angry about what had happened to him. “He was not looking for revenge.”

W.M. Disananyake Wasala, 61, lost his left leg after being attacked by an elephant in 2019. Wasala says he is not angry with the elephants that attack people. He believes that elephants do not mean to harm humans, and that if there were separate spaces for humans and elephants to live, attacks like the one that took his leg would not happen.

Raju, a wild elephant that lives near Maduru Oya National Park, bears a scar and a disfigured leg from a gunshot wound. Sri Lankan law forbids harming elephants, but few who do so are prosecuted.

Bags of rice are often stored inside homes during the winter. Elephants can smell the grain from miles away and will destroy homes in an attempt to reach it.

Borella also documented elephants victimized by humans. One elephant, nicknamed Raju, bore a scar and a disabled leg from having been shot. Raju died shortly after he was photographed by Borella. He fell into a canal, and his disabled leg meant he was unable to escape.

Another elephant Borella photographed was a calf with a disfigured face. It had been the victim of a “jaw bomb” — a homemade explosive covered with fruit to entice an elephant to bite it.

The photographer plans to travel back to Sri Lanka this year to expand the portion of his work focused on elephants themselves.

Tourists feed an elephant at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. The orphanage, established in 1975 by the Sri Lanka Wildlife Department to care for orphaned wild elephants, is often criticized by conservationists for its devotion to wildlife tourism.

Park ranger L. Gayan Ranjula de Silva poses with elephant skulls near the visitor center of Wilpattu National Park.

Meanwhile, effective solutions to the conflict remain elusive.

In some villages, electric fences have been successful. One that Borella visited hasn’t had a casualty in the three years since it installed an electric fence. But those same fences, when turned up to a high enough voltage by angry farmers, are also the number one killer of elephants. Other villages utilize watchtowers or contact rangers with nonlethal ammunition to drive off elephants.

One expert Borella spoke to as he researched the issue said the only answer might be to clear the elephant corridors of human activity.

“It’s called a conflict because of this: Both species are trying to survive,” Borella said. “It’s difficult to find a solution.”