In the 21st century, Sri Lanka finds itself faced with an increasingly complex and interconnected landscape of risks that are often covariate and mutually compounding. Climate change — along with…
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka – Some 215 kilometers (130 miles) south of Colombo in the Hambantota district lies a unique, infrequently travelled, bird-watching location: Lunama and Kalametiya. A quaint coastal wetland,…
COLOMBO — Fireflies, with their bioluminescent rears, are fascinating species that appeal to people’s imaginations, especially those of children. In Sri Lanka, the first systematic study of fireflies was carried…
From time to time, there are media flashes about leopard cubs being rescued and some reports carry moving video footage of how well-meaning village folk, especially estate workers in the…
RATNAPURA, Sri Lanka — The Young Zoologists’ Association (YZA) is a youth organization that explores Sri Lanka’s biodiversity, and its members are an enthusiastic group of people often raking through…
COLOMBO — In Lewis Carroll’s popular children’s book “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice finds a magical mushroom that could make her bigger or smaller. There are many references to wild mushrooms…
COLOMBO — The month of April is typically the warmest in Sri Lanka as the sun is positioned directly over the Indian Ocean island. Coupled with high humidity, the high…
COLOMBO — On average one elephant has died each day in Sri Lanka in the first three months of this year, with nearly half of those deaths due to human…
COLOMBO — The Sri Lankan government is filing a lawsuit in Singapore for compensation nearly two years since the worst maritime disaster in the country’s history. But activists say it…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s animal-human conflicts are on the rise with increasing crop raids, but a recent request from a Chinese company requesting 100,00 toque macaques from Sri Lanka has…
ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — Current climate models forewarn that Sri Lanka’s dry zone is likely to become drier due to climate change, resulting in water shortages for agriculture. A country…
COLOMBO — The Sinharaja Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site is a large complex of lowland wilderness that is largely fragmented due to human activity. Walankanda and Viharakanda are…
COLOMBO — Arjuna Jinadasa owns a plot of land full of coconut trees in Kurunegala, in northwestern Sri Lanka, where he enjoys a good produce of about 3,000 coconuts a…
COLOMBO — The fishers in Illuppaikadawei village in the northern district of Mannar mostly use fence fishery, where they erect a series of poles and tie a net around them…
COLOMBO — Sri Lankan authorities are considering banning the use of a human contraceptive injection for animals backed by calls from animal rights activists and vets, after a state-sanctioned chemical…
HABARANA, Sri Lanka — As a four-day reggae, rock and hip hop music fiesta got underway Feb. 17, putting many wild animals inhabiting a forest reserve in Habarana in Sri…
Kalpitiya, SRI LANKA: The Feb. 11 beaching of 14 pilot whales in Kalpitiya, about 172 kilometers (107 miles) from the capital, Colombo, may have occurred due to the recent seismic…
COLOMBO — The Singapore-flagged X-Press Pearl was a brand-new container ship, only three months after being commissioned, when a fire erupted and began sinking off Sri Lanka’s western coast on May 20,…
COLOMBO — Each day, as the sun set over the horizon, Thettuwage Tennakoon and his wife would carefully climb up into their treehouse in the middle of their rice field.…
During a dietary study on fishing cats living near Colombo, Sri Lanka, researchers made an unexpected finding: Some scat samples collected contained plastics. Varying in size from tiny microplastics to…
COLOMBO — When Uditha Hettige started out doing field excursions in 1990, in search of Sri Lanka’s rich bird life, he would visit Bodhinagala Forest Reserve in the country’s west…
COLOMBO — The first time that scientists described the beautiful metallic-green dragonfly that they would later call Flint’s cruiser was in 1970. Based on a single male specimen, they named…
COLOMBO — The small Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka may contribute only 0.03% to global carbon emission levels yet it has set an ambitious target to become carbon neutral…
COLOMBO — When some of the biggest machines ever made meet the largest animals to ever live, it often doesn’t work out well for the latter. In March 2012, a…
COLOMBO — The horrific fatal shooting of a 1 1/2-year-old Rottweiler in Sri Lanka has sparked fresh concerns about the country’s outdated animal cruelty laws. Rexie went missing in the…
In the months leading up to Sri Lanka’s presidential election in November 2019, leading candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa spoke about the need for leaders to implement policies without arguing about the…
COLOMBO — During the 18th and 19th centuries when Sri Lanka was a British colony, many British naturalists studied the island’s rich biodiversity and contributed to profiling the same. Tea…
Colombo, SRI LANKA — Like floating mushrooms with thin and transparent tentacles, jellyfish would have been drifting in the oceanic currents for several millions of years and even predating the…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka has received $2.5 million in the third interim payment for the impacts caused by the sinking of the X-Press Pearl cargo vessel off the country’s western…
COLOMBO — Look past the venomous vipers and cobras and the powerful constrictors. Dig a little deeper — literally, into the soil — and you might find one of the…
