Countries Visited: Sri Lanka
A first class wildlife tour
Sri Lanka, known for its culture, beaches, highlands and tea, is less well known for its wildlife. This is a tour purely concentrating on whales and the wildlife of Yala National Park, especially leopards.
Many people are only just learning of the extraordinary phenomenon of the huge Blue and Sperm whales arriving in numbers just off the south coast. A Blue whale is the size of a couple of London buses but much more streamlined and photogenic. Seen from the sea on a privately chartered boat, it is a marine experience without parallel.
This tour divides its time between these exciting navigations and Yala, several hours away, with one of the highest concentrations of leopards in the world as well as plenty of marvellously coloured birdlife. This will be an intense safari but with a bit of downtime as well, and there are few better places for this than Sri Lanka.
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What makes this trip responsible?
We have an excellent long-term relationship with the local operator who employ and train all leaders. We provide refresher training with a focus on Responsible Tourism, so our local leaders can educate our clients locally on helping to preserve the way of life in their area.
Sri Lanka Projects
Back to Life Project
After the devastating Tsunami of December 2004 Exodus helped set up a project to rebuild some of the areas that our clients had been visiting for years. This included rehousing some of the families who had lost their homes in the Tsunami. The project has now been completed and we are looking forward to giving continued assistance to community projects in the area.
If you would like to read further information about this project please see our Back to Life Project page.
Yala Leopard Project
This a new project set up in 2010 by Paul Goldstein. The dense population of leopards in Yala has pushed young leopards outside the park's boundaries to look for new territories. As the Chena cultivations and cattle farmers live adjacent to the park's buffer zones, the predators often come into contact with villagers and their livestock with casualties on both sides. Leopards prey on young cattle corralled in flimsy wooden pens for overnight protection. There are instances where a single leopard can cause multiple kills on young calves which leads to revenge attacks by farmers. This conflict is estimated to claim up to 20 leopards around the periphery of Yala Park annually, to say nothing of the financial loss to the farmers. Exodus has pledged to raise enough funds to supply the cattle farmers with steel pens that will safeguard their cattle through the night.
For further information please see our Yala Leopard Project page
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Images from WHALES AND LEOPARDS OF SRI LANKA
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Leopard
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