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After spending a few hours at the Millennium Orpanage, which is basically a retirement home for old elephants, we drove down the road to the most famous orphanage in Sri Lanka.

The Pinnewela orphanage is massive, with around 80 elephants that attract tourists from all over the world. Some have called it controversial because of claims that they are actively breeding elephants for profit. The advocates of the project claim that they need to generate money to continue taking care of the animals and keep them in good health. The baby elephants are the real money makers. If it wasn’t for the “feeding time” when two chained up baby elephants are fed in front of a massive crowd of people, it seems like most of the elephants there are pretty happy. The elephants have room to roam, and while much larger than a wild herd, the group integration somewhat mimics life in the wild.

The most memorable orphan was a teenager who had lost the bottom of his right front leg to a land mine.

We thought the three legged dog at the hotel was a sad story, but watching this massive animal hobble around on three legs was heart wrenching. It is unclear how long it can go on living like that; the good front leg is now bowed out from supporting so much weight and its back is twisted from being out of balance.

There have been recent success stories of elephants in similar situations who have been saved by the use of prosthetic limbs, but there are either no funds available to help this particular elephant or the keepers have decided to let it play out “naturally.” We packed up and headed to the Northwest to Puttalam where we’ll be filming more victims of HEC.

Before bed we finally chowed down on the long awaited crab curry that we have been promised for the past two weeks.

Tags: documentary, production, sri lanka