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The orphan


The orphan
Photo Information
Copyright: Anoop Sukumaran (anoop) Silver Star Critiquer/Silver Note Writer [C: 14 W: 1 N: 15] (106)
Genre: Animals
Medium: Color
Date Taken: 2005-02-20
Categories: Mammals
Camera: Fujifilm Finepix S5000
Exposure: f/4.5, 1/400 seconds
More Photo Info: [view]
Photo Version: Original Version
Date Submitted: 2005-02-23 23:51
Viewed: 1639
Points: 4
[Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note
This is a 6 month old orphan at the Pinnawela Elephant orphange in srilanka. The elephants are taken for a bath every day in the afternoon. This young one was particularly thrilled with the water. Some more info on Pinnawela below.
The Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage was started in 1975 by the Department of Wildlife on a twenty five acre coconut property on the Maha Oya river at Rambukkana. The orphanage was primarily designed to afford care and protection to the many baby elephants found in the jungle without their mothers. In most of these cases the mother had either died or been killed. In some instances the baby had fallen into a pit and in others the mother had fallen in and died. Initially this orphanage was at the Wilpattu National Park, then shifted to the tourist complex at Bentota and then to the Dehiwala Zoo.

From the Dehiwala Zoo it was shifted 1975 to Pinnawela. At the time it was shifted the orphanage had five baby elephants which formed its nucleus.It was hoped that this facility would attract both local and foreign visitors, the income from which would help to maintain the orphanage.

There are only a few elephant orphanages in the world. Pinnawela has now become one of the bigger orphanages and is quite well known world wide.

In 1978 the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage was taken over by the National Zoological Gardens from the Department of Wildlife and a captive breeding program launched in 1982. When the zoo took over there were twelve animals five of whom were babies.In time more baby elephants were added to the original herd of five. It was observed that though older females could be added it was not possible to add older males to the herd. 1997 there are 52 animals of which there 10 were babies under 3 years of age. There were five mahouts for the twelve elephants when the orphanage was taken over 1978 and now there are twenty mahouts. This number is inadequate to manage the increasing and growing number of elephants. See http://www.elephant.se/pinnawela_elephant_orphanage_Sri_Lanka.php for more info.
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Critiques [Translate]

  • Great 
  • dew77 Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 5171 W: 297 N: 4050] (13069)
  • [2005-02-24 2:29]

Good shot,Anoop!But I think you could keep more distance for your shot.Details can be seen perfect...TFS

Very nice shot, maybe framed a bit too tight.
Well done.
TFS.

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