Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka

The Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage is situated northwest of the town of Kegalle, halfway between the present capital Colombo and the ancient royal residence Kandy in the hills of central Sri Lanka. It was established in 1975 by the Sri Lanka wildlife department in a 25 acre coconut property near the Maha Oya river. The orphanage was originally founded in order to afford care and protection to the many orphaned elephants found in the jungle. As of 2003, there were 65 elephants.
In 1978 the orphanage was taken over by the National Zoological Gardens from the Department of Wildlife and a captive breeding program was launched in 1982. Since this time over twenty elephants have been born. The aim of the orphanage is to simulate the natural world. However, there are some exceptions: the elephants are taken to the river twice daily for a bath, and all the babies under three years of age are still bottle fed by the mahouts and volunteers. Each animal is also given around 76kg of green matter a day and around 2kg from a food bag containing rice bran and maize. They get access to water twice a day, from the river.
The orphanage is very popular and visited daily by many Sri Lankan and foreign tourists. The main attraction is clearly to observe the bathing elephants from the tall river bank as it allows visitors to observe the herd interacting socially, bathing and playing.
This 24 acre elephant orphanage is also a breeding place for elephants. Twenty elephants have been born since 1984, and the orphanage has the largest herd of captive elephants in the world. While most of the elephants are healthy, one is blind and one, named Sama, has lost her front left leg due to a landmine.

Pinnawela elephant orphanage

Pinnawela orphanage is situated northwest of the town Kegalla, halfways between the present capitol Colombo and the ancient royal residence Kandy in the hills of central Sri Lanka. It was established 1975 by the Sri Lanka Wildlife department. This 25 acres large elephant orphanage is a also breeding pace for elephants, twenty elephants were born since 1984, and it has the greatest herd of elephants in captivity in the world. The difference between the elephant orphanage in Pinnawala and Ath Athuru Sevena Transit Home at Uda Walawe is that at the Transit Home these baby elephants once cared for are released to the wilds when they reach a certain age.

1975: 5 baby elephants
1978: 12 elephants, of those 5 babies.
1997: 56 elephants, and in
1998: 63 elephants
2000 70 elephants,
2003 65 elephants,
2005 80 elephants,
2010 more than 100 elephants with babies,

History of  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 were 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.

Working hours are quite short and you certainly won't be overloaded with work, so you'll have plenty of time to sightsee and explore. Some elephants are overly large or have not been tamed or trained to a satisfactory level, whereby it is possible to safely have full hands-on contact.
The majority of volunteer work deals more with the day-to-day aspects of running the orphanage, rather than more specialised research or veterinary based work, although you will have the opportunity to do some hands-on work
Your main duties will be:
Mucking out the elephant enclosures in the morning (this is hard, muddy work!)
Participating in bathing some of the smaller elephants.
While the mahouts are bathing the larger elephants, you will be able to relax by the river, chat to the mahouts and watch the elephants play and interact with humans and each other. This is an absolutely beautiful sight and being around these serene animals in such a beautiful setting can have a very calming effect!
Climate: In the lowlands the climate is typically tropical with an average temperature of 27 C in Colombo. In the higher elevations it can be quite cool with temperatures going down to 16 C at an altitude of nearly 2,000 metres. Bright, sunny warm days are the rule and are common even during the height of the monsoon - climatically Sri Lanka has no off-season
Opening Time:
The orphanage is open all day but it is best to try and coincide your visit with the twice daily feeding and bathing. At 9.15am and 4.15pm, the baby elephants are taken into the stalls where they are tethered and then bottle fed with milk, providing endless photo opportunities. This might be a crowd pleaser but it's not the highlight; what really steals the show is the bathing. Follow the herd out of the orphanage and down a 400-metre track to the river. Here the elephants are left to wallow and play in the shallow water that flows swiftly over smooth rocks. The younger ones play and hose themselves and each other while the older ones seem content to stand or lie around and cool off quietly. The herd is allowed to stay at the river for about an hour, plenty of time for you to find a perch on the rocks or in one of the restaurants that overlooks the water. Despite being protected, elephants in Sri Lanka are suffering due to the gradual destruction of their habitat. Elephant Corridors are being set up, criss-crossing the country to enable the herds to wander safely between the small areas of jungle that are left. Hungry elephants are a bit a of a nuisance and can be dangerous when forced to search for food in towns and villages. In these cases the intruders are often shot, sometimes leaving behind their young ones. In addition, fighting in the north of the country over the last 20 years has also claimed plenty of elephant casualties. One elephant at the orphanage lost half a leg after stepping on a landmine.No matter where you are staying in southern Sri Lanka, Pinnawala is easily accessible as a day trip. This is one experience that shouldn't be missed

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