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zoo, fascinated by their grace in movement.
Introduced to wildlife at a very young age as his father was a surveyor and spent days on the field, sometimes accompanied by Miththapala, the passion was passed on father to son. Continuing this trait, Miththapala has passed on his love for these mammals to his son, Dimitri, along with whom he set out to look for the missing king of the Udawalawe National Park (UWNP) in 2010.
The ‘Find Raja’ project, a three-month journey to find out the fate of the majestic king of Udawalawe ‘Walawe Raja’ who was found missing since 2009 gained much popularity during the course of the search thanks to regular blog and newspaper updates.
Giving a round-up of what exactly happened, the father-son duo on Thursday presented an overview of the project and highlighted the need for tracking animals who are well-known, much loved and has a story of their own to tell.
Walawe Raja, the star of our story was an iconic tusker, one of the four tuskers (Sumeda, Raja, Kalthota Raja and Asoka) spotted in Udawalawe. Sadly only two of the four remain today, with Raja gone missing and Asoka being shot within the park some six years ago. The next in line to take on the title of the king is likely to be Sumeda we learn, but that is a story of its own.
Today the attention is on Walawe Raja, a movie star, starring in two famous productions – The Last Tusker (BBC wildlife film) and Between Two Worlds (natural history New Zealand film production aired on Discovery channel) who frequented UWNP annually for some 20 years, spending three to four months in the park, chasing girls and impregnating most of them while he was in musth (a cyclical sexual phenomena which manifests itself in mature, healthy male elephants and when the its testosterone level goes up by some 50 times and is in prime condition for reproduction.)
Who is Raja?
Walawe Raja is also one of Srilal’s favourites. “He was an icon; a beauty,” he said. “When he approaches a group of female elephants, they all go silent.”
He noted that he started seeing Raja in around 2003 in the park. “He had perfect tusks then.” However somewhere in 2005, he broke one. “But to my surprise after sometime he started growing it back.” The regular visitor during June-October period was noticed missing in 2009 by Srilal’s friend Asoka who now works as a Researcher Officer in Udawalawe. When the king was missing in 2010 as well, the Miththapala’s were alerted. The sad part however was that this beautiful animal was not noted as missing by any of the trackers, prior to this.
“There is a joke that raja comes to the park wither to look for girlfriends or when he is injured,” Srilal recalled. “He always comes with a whole lot of bullet wounds and the veterinarians treat him and he recovers. But like a prayer he comes, never fails.” That was up until 2009.
Big as he maybe he was never aggressive towards humans, he said, even though he well asserted himself with other elephants. As recorded in veteran Wildlife Veterinarian Dr. Vijitha Perera’s forthcoming book – “Treatment of the wound on his forehead was memorable.... Raja was lucky again as it seemed to be that the bullet has stopped somewhere between brain and skin. I was hesitant tranquilise Raja in this condition but something had to be done. I decided to dart him with large antibiotic.” Having dedicated a whole chapter to Raja, the book also says the following, Srilal said: “Raja was the most extraordinary animal. Although he was aggressive towards other elephants he never showed any aggression towards us. Even after that day, we treated him several more times and not once did he attempt to charge.”
This may have well been his nature, but for Srilal it was because Raja was beyond all of us. “He would look at humans and give this look that said ‘what are these puny jeeps’ and go. With other elephants however asserted authority and he was really the king.”
In 2008 Raja was seen with an injury at the tip of his tongue, most probably a result of the trunk being caught in a noose.
Looking for His Majesty the ‘Raja’
“In 2010 when he wasn’t seen again, I spoke to my son and we decided to do something without just sitting and criticising. That was the start of ‘Find Raja’ project.”
The intention was to undertake a quick search and investigation in the surrounding regions of the north eastern and north western side of UWNP to try and ascertain whether there have been any recent sightings of Raja and thereby locate him.”We knew this will be difficult. But we wanted to do this and we wanted to create some interest among people about such a wonderful national treasure as I would call it and start looking for him in a methodical way.”
They started looking for a fairly big needle in the haystack. There were four outcomes, they listed – a. find Raja, hale and hearty with a girlfriend, b. find Raja injured and get him treated, c. worse scenario find him dead, or d. not find him at all.
The duo set out with a small team consisting of three others from Udawalawe. Between late October 2010 and January 2011 they have made over 20 excursions just outside of the North Eastern areas of the park, tracking down leads of possible sightings.
“All in all it was quite an interesting exercise, although unsuccessful,” Dimitri said, joining his father. He noted that the idea was to get as many people involved as possible. Using social media and the internet for this purpose, the intention was to have regular updates on a blog and give live feeds of the project. “I wanted to drum up a lot on social media and IT – we wanted to upload live pictures from the field, etc.” However, as all stories go, things were not as simple to execute as they seem in plan.
Gaining internet access was tough, he said as most of the time they did not even have signal. “So we went back to basics. We were able to educate and talk to villagers. We printed out ‘Find Raja’ flyers with our number and made small booklets citing his features etc.” And the leads started pouring in, although, none took them where they wanted.
“Everyone had a story to tell. Albeit interesting, this wasn’t what we were looking for. They all seem to have seen Raja but when we dig in, it would have been three-four years ago,” Dimitri said. “Once we got a call saying there was sighting. As soon as we got there we got another call from where we were before saying they saw Raja there. It was interesting and fun, but nothing took us even close to what we wanted to achieve.”
They also took a quick look in the corridor but drew a blank. They had a lot of data but couldn’t make sense of it. Discouraged, they concluded the program in December.
Who will take the crown?
With Raja now missing, who will step into his king-sized shoes? “It is likely to be Sumeda,” Dimitri said.
The tale of how Raja was the king of Udawalawe is also an interesting story, he shared. Asoka had once witnessed Sumeda and Raja coming face to face in the middle of a heard when he was in musth. The minute he sensed Raja, Sumeda has turned around fled. “This tusker, who himself is huge running away from Raja pretty much solidifies the fact that Raja was probably the biggest there was. He is said to have run away like a little scared school boy, tale between his legs, straight through the jungle.”
However judging by Sumeda’s interactions now, he will probably be the king now, Dimitri expressed. Sumeda can easily be identified from a huge bullet hole in the left ear.
“Raja, wherever he maybe has made an impact,” Srilal said. “But the grim reality is unfortunately Raja is M.I.A. As has not been seen for last three to four years it is difficult to think he is alive anymore.”
Are there mini Raja’s around?
“There could be hope of little budding Raja’s,” Srilal said. One, named ‘Little Fang’ has been identified as a possible son of Raja. However, just because Raja mated with a female doesn’t mean they are tuskers as female also must carry the tusker genes to produce a tusker son. “He was a reproductive machine during his heyday and there could be a lot of little Raja’s. There is hope that among the young fellows growing up there could be young Raja’s around.”
Srilal also acknowledged that according to the Elephant Transit Home in Udawalawe, they have released six tuskers into the park. One of them is Bullet or Senadi, a 10 to 12-year-old tusker.
