by mockingster

Created on: July 30, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

During my early days even though I loved animals with a passion, I never had the opportunity to visit any of our local Wildlife National Parks until I got married. My husband grew up in Kenya and fortunately for him his parents had an interest in wildlife and most of their Sundays would be at the Nairobi National Park with a picnic lunch. This inculcated in him a tremendous love for the jungle from an early age.

I recall one of our early trips to Yala. Yala National Park is located in the south of Sri Lanka and is home to Leopard, Elephant, Sambhur, Deer, Wild boar, Buffalo and many other smaller animals. It also has plenty of bird life. This trip was a three day booking and we were staying inside the park. We were staying at a bungalow known as "Heenwewa". The trip was just the 3 of us my husband, a friend of ours and myself.

We saw plenty of wildlife on this trip. As we set out from the bungalow one morning we were greeted by a young leopard cub who decided to entertain us by playing all by himself. We also saw plenty of elephant, deer and many more but the highlight of the trip was an incident that occurred just behind our bungalow.

It was about 5.00 am when our tracker Ratnayake came to our bungalow and woke us all up and said that there was an injured deer just between their quarters and our bungalow. So sleepily we all trouped out to assess the situation. Sure enough there was a deer helpless as ever, terrified to death at our appearance but yet unable to get up and get on its way. On closer examination we came to the conclusion that its back was broken but there were only a few scratches on its neck. We tried to coax it to have some water but to no avail.

We finally left it and went on our morning round into the park with rather heavy hearts. We felt really sorry for the poor chap but there was nothing we could do but let nature take its course. When we came back we inquired after the deer. They said it had just died a few minutes ago. Closer examination revealed that its back had some nasty gashes. It was the work of a leopard.

Ratnayake and the bungalow keeper carried the carcass to the edge of the forest and left it there. We hoped that its owner would come back and give us some photo opportunity. All that made its appearance was a few measly crows.

We were undecided as to whether to do the evening round in the park or to sit and wait around for some action at the carcass. We decided that it would be more fruitful to do the evening round. When we arrived at the bungalow we were informed that there had been no action at the carcass. Just as we were getting out of the vehicle, a huge wild boar came to the carcass, put his snout under the carcass and moved it, and then it would fall. Again he would put his snout under the carcass and move it till it would fall again. This process was repeated twice more until the carcass was not visible anymore. What an amazing show of strength!

The next day was our day for departure. We were having breakfast and we were alerted by the alarm call of monkeys. We got up to look at what the commotion was a leopard was walking down the path and as soon as it saw us it moved into the jungle but we knew it was making its way towards the carcass as the monkeys were calling and following it. After a while all the commotion died down. We left a little after that heading our way home.

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