Ain't this interesting, folks?
Bernie
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Tsunami Kills Few Animals in Sri Lanka
By GEMUNU AMARASINGHE
YALA NATIONAL PARK, Sri Lanka (AP) - Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka
expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of
large-scale animal deaths from the tsunamis - indicating that animals
may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground.
An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka's Yala
National Park in an air force helicopter saw abundant wildlife,
including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse.
Floodwaters from Sunday's tsunami swept into the park, uprooting
trees and toppling cars onto their roofs - one red car even ended up
on top of a huge tree - but the animals apparently were not harmed
and may have sought out high ground, said Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne,
whose Jetwing Eco Holidays ran a hotel in the park.
``This is very interesting. I am finding bodies of humans, but I have
yet to see a dead animal,'' said Wijeyeratne, whose hotel in the park
was destroyed.
``Maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth sense,''
Wijeyeratne said.
Yala, Sri Lanka's largest wildlife reserve, is home to 200 Asian
Elephants, crocodile, wild boar, water buffalo and gray langur
monkeys. The park also has Asia's highest concentration of leopards.
The Yala reserve covers 391 square miles, but only 56 square miles
are open to tourists.
The human death toll in Sri Lanka surpassed 21,000. Forty foreigners
were among 200 people in Yala who were killed.=20
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