Wildlife in Sri Lanka

There are some who talk about wildlife in Sri Lanka in terms of the Big Four, perhaps because wildlife vacations somehow need to compete with African safaris and the traveler’s insatiable quest to tick off the Big Five. However, the sooner you let that comparison go the better, because Sri Lanka is a completely different world when it comes to wildlife. First of all it is an island; secondly it’s in the Indian Ocean and thirdly, unlike most Big Five safari destinations, it is has a tropical climate.

In terms of numbers, a better starting point for Sri Lanka wildlife may be 400 rather than four. There are over 400 species of birds on the island, and over 236 of these are resident, as opposed to the migratory marvels passing through to say hi. Although when you look at the stunning environs of Bundala National Park with its flocks of flamingos or Wilpattu National Park’s whiskered terns and black-winged stilts, for example, you do wonder why they would ever bother leaving. Bird watchers have long known about the Sri Lanka as you can see from the almost iconic Ceylon Bird Club, established during colonial times in 1943. Their knowledge and website is superb. It guides you through the prolific birdlife found all over Sri Lanka, including Wilpattu, Horton Plains National Park, Kitulgala Rainforest, Sinharaja Reserve and Yala National Park.

This is half the amount compared with a hundred years ago, though, due to deforestation and poaching – both of which are sadly still an issue in Sri Lanka, as is the keeping of elephants in captivity merely for the entertainment of tourists, such as at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. Read more on this in our guides on elephant trekking and Pinnawala.

To see elephants in the wild, one of the most famous spots is Minneriya National Park in the north. Not far from the country’s greatest cultural sites where tourists gather in their hundreds, elephants do the same, particularly between August and October. Known as The Gathering, it is the time when these big beauties come together at Minneriya Lake, when the dry season limits the supping supplies elsewhere. You can see hundreds of them here at the same time, drinking and playing in the water, joined by macaques, langurs, sambar, and the odd leopard, if you are really lucky. Yala and Wilpattu National Parks are also prime elephant watching terrain.