Yala National Park

Yala National Park is a national park in Sri Lanka. The reserve covers 979 km², although only the original 141 km² are open to the public.

Much of the reserve is parkland, but it also contains jungle, beaches, freshwater lakes and rivers and scrubland. The latter zone is punctuated with enormous rocky outcrops. The range of habitats give rise to a good range of wildlife.

Yala has the world's highest concentration of Leopards, although seeing this largely nocturnal carnivore still requires some luck. There are good numbers of Asian Elephants, Crocodile, Wild Boar, Water Buffalo and Grey langurs amongst other large animals.

The open parkland attracts birds of prey such as White-bellied Sea Eagle and the wetlands have Waders, Painted Storks, and the rare Black-necked Stork.

Landbirds of course are in abundance, and include Sirkeer Malkoha, Indian Peafowl and Sri Lanka Junglefowl.

The park was badly damaged by the tsunami of 26th December 2004, with the destruction of the wildlife center and tourist lodge. Many tourists, including a party of 22 Japanese, died in the disaster, as did several of the national park and lodge employees. It is claimed that no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the tsunami was found indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground.

Now it is again open to the public visitors.

The following image gallery illustrates some of the animals and bird species found in the Yala national park.

References

*P. Fernando, Eric D. Wikramanayake and Jennifer Pastorini, "Impact of tsunami on terrestrial ecosystems of Yala National Park, Sri Lanka," Current Science, Vol. 90, No. 11, pp. 1531-1534, June 2006 [http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jun102006/1531.pdf Online] .
* [http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/tsunami_wildlife_041230.html Tsunami Kills Few Animals in Sri Lanka, Gemunu Amarasinghe, Associated Press]

See also

* [http://www.dwlc.lk/ Department of Wildlife Conservation, Sri Lanka]
* [http://www.lankalibrary.com/wlife.html WWW Virtual Library, Sri Lanka]
* [http://www.slmts.slt.lk/nationalparks.htm National Parks and Wildlife in Sri Lanka]
* [http://www.ccrsl.org/ Centre for Conservation and Research]
* [http://www.wildlifetrust.org/news/2005/pruthu030105.htm Ecological Damage of Tsunami in Yala National Park]