Wildlife to save donkeys facing threat of extinction in Mannar, Puttalam

By Ifham Nizam

The Wildlife Department has launched a programme to save the donkeys in the Mannar District as they are facing the threat of extinction.

A senior spokesperson for the Department said that the government had decided to take a large number of donkeys from public places in Mannar and relocate them to the islands off Kalpitiya, where they could live safely.

There are some 3,000 donkeys living in areas such as Mannar, Puttalam and Kalpitiya.

He added that inbreeding among donkeys had also become a serious problem and the Donkey Clinic and Education Centre at Olaithoduwai Road, Thailankudiyiruppu, Mannar was doing their utmost to prevent inbreeding.

It is also rumoured that donkeys in these areas are being killed for meat although they are protected under Section 30 sub-section 1 of the Flora and Fauna Protection Ordinance. “Punishment for killing a donkey could be imprisonment or a fine or both,” said environmental lawyer Jagath Gunawardana.

Environmentalists had long asked the government to conserve the donkeys in the Mannar Peninsula through in situ or ex-situ conservation. In situ conservation is a set of conservation techniques involving the designation, management and monitoring of biodiversity in the same area where it is encountered while ex-situ is where they are removed from their original habitat and taken to another location and bred