Animals Appear to Have Escaped Wave in Sri Lanka
YALA NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka — Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend’s massive tsunami.
An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka’s Yala National Park in a helicopter saw abundant wildlife, including elephants and deer, and not a single animal carcass.
Floodwaters from the tsunami swept into the park, uprooting trees and flipping cars onto their roofs. One car even ended up on top of a huge tree.
The animals apparently were not harmed and may have sought out higher ground, said Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, whose Jetwing Eco Holidays ran a hotel in the park.
“This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal,” said Wijeyeratne, whose hotel was destroyed.
He speculated that the animals might have known somehow that the water was coming.
Yala is also home to crocodiles, wild boars and leopards.
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