Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage (Sinhala: පින්නවල අලි අනාථාගාරය; Tamil: பின்னவலை யானைகள் புகலகம்) is a captive elephant-based recreation facility in Kegalle District, Sri Lanka.
It maintains one of the largest captive population of elephants in the world
belonging to the Elephas maximus maximus , the Sri Lankan subspecies of
Asian elephant or Elephas maximus (Pushpakumara et al., 2016).
Due to the arrival of visitors in large numbers, this area presently has turned into a popular tourist destination in the country. History
The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage was established in 1975 by the Department of Wildlife Conservation to provide refuge and care for elephants that were injured, orphaned, abandoned or separated from their families/herds in the wild (Rajapaksa, 2007; Tisdell & Bandara, 2003; Samarasinghe & Ahamed, 2016). In 1978, it was taken over by the Department of
National Zoological Gardens (Samarasinghe & Ahamed, 2016; Dayanada & Weerakoon, 2012). The orphanage rec…