The Department of Wildlife Conservation has recorded 289 wild elephant deaths between 1 January and 23 October 2026, and has not established a cause of death in 95 of them, the Daily Mirror reported on Thursday, citing the department’s latest statistics.
Gunshot injuries were the single largest identified cause, accounting for 42 deaths. Electrocution and hakka patas — the explosive baits that detonate in an animal’s mouth — accounted for 34 each.
The causes as recorded
| Cause | Deaths |
|---|---|
| Cause not identified | 95 |
| Gunshot injuries | 42 |
| Electrocution | 34 |
| Hakka patas | 34 |
| Putrefaction | 23 |
| Infected wounds | 11 |
| Worm infestation | 9 |
| Fell into wells or pits | 8 |
| Drowning | 7 |
| Accidents | 7 |
| Poisoning | 4 |
| Train accidents | 3 |
| Other | 3 |
| Natural causes | 2 |
| Decomposition | 2 |
| Polythene | 2 |
| Septicaemia | 0 |
Two things in this table are worth stating plainly
It does not add up to 289. The listed causes total 286, leaving three deaths unaccounted for. The regional breakdown below, by contrast, reconciles to 289 exactly — so the gap sits in the cause list rather than in the overall figure. Nothing in the filing explains it.
The real number of undetermined deaths is probably larger than 95. “Putrefaction” and “decomposition” describe the state in which a carcass was found, not a mechanism of death. On a strict reading, those 25 cases are also deaths without an established cause, which would put the total closer to 120 of 289 — about 42 per cent. This desk records that as its own reading of the categories, not as a departmental finding.
Where the elephants died
The Eastern Wildlife Region recorded the most deaths at 60, followed by Anuradhapura with 57 and Polonnaruwa with 42. Uva recorded 33 and the North Western Wildlife Region 21.
The Southern region recorded 19, Vavuniya 18, Central 15 and Trincomalee 14. Puttalam recorded nine and Kilinochchi one. These figures sum to 289.
How 2026 compares
Parliament was told in October that 455 wild elephants died in 2025, up from 388 in 2024.
The 296 days covered by the new figures work out at 0.98 elephant deaths a day, against 1.25 a day across 2025 and 1.06 a day across 2024. If the current rate held to the end of December, 2026 would close at roughly 356 deaths — below both previous years.
The pace has not been steady within the year, however. This desk reported 128 deaths by 21 May, a rate of 0.91 a day. The 161 deaths recorded between then and 23 October work out at 1.04 a day — a faster rate than the first part of the year, though still below the 2025 average.
One caution on that comparison: the running totals published for 2026 do not form a single consistent series. Figures released around World Elephant Day in August, and separate counts given for deaths attributed specifically to human-elephant conflict, do not reconcile with each other or with this one, because they do not all measure the same thing. The comparisons above use only cumulative all-cause departmental totals.
Against a population of about 7,451
A nationwide survey put Sri Lanka’s wild elephant population at 7,451 animals in 2024. Measured against that count, 289 deaths represent about 3.9 per cent of the national herd in ten months.
At least 76 of the deaths — gunshots and hakka patas combined — were unambiguously inflicted by people, before counting electrocution, which in Sri Lanka usually means contact with illegal electric fences rather than accidental contact with the grid. Including electrocution and poisoning, the clearly human-caused total is 114 — about 39 per cent of all 289 deaths, and close to 60 per cent of the 191 deaths in which a cause was identified at all.
Context
The figures land in the middle of a sustained enforcement push. The ‘Hasthi Sena’ operation, placing soldiers alongside wildlife officers, began at Galkiriyagama on 2 November and has since seized firearms, traps and snares, including more than 20 snares at the Namal Uyana reserve. This desk also reported illegal electric traps at Rattha in Ibbagamuwa last week.
Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa — second and third in the death toll — sit in the zone where that operation began.
Not reported
The filing does not say whether the 289 figure covers deaths of all ages, give a comparison with the same period in 2025, or state how many of the 95 undetermined cases remain under investigation.
It does not explain why no septicaemia deaths were recorded when 11 elephants died of infected wounds, say what “polythene” denotes as a cause, or account for the three-death gap in its own cause table. It gives no figure for human deaths caused by elephants over the same period.
This is a single-source story. A search of the other verified newsrooms found no independent account of these figures at the time of writing; the results returned were earlier editions of the department’s running total from August and before.
