The illegal wildlife trade is considered one of the major threats to global biodiversity. Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) have been highly valued by various cultures for use in religious and spiritual contexts, as a draft animal, and more recently, as a tourist attraction. Thus, the demand for captive elephants is high. Wild Asian elephants are taken from the wild, often illegally, to maintain these captive populations due to the unviability of captive breeding programs. For the first time, we documented the extent to which wild elephants are being illegally captured and traded in Sri Lanka between January 2008 and December 2018. We collected data from case records maintained by the Sri Lanka court system where the suspects of illegal elephant trade were prosecuted in addition to information gathered by archives and interviews with various stakeholders. We documented 55 cases where elephants were illegally traded. This is probably an underestimate due to the mortality rate of elephants during capture operations, and challenges in collecting data on this highly organized illicit trade. Nearly equal numbers of male and female elephants were traded and more than 50% of them were juveniles, aged ≤5 years. Significantly more elephants were found to be seized in 2014–2015 than in the other time periods combined. We found evidence of the illegal capture of wild elephants from wildlife protected areas and state forests. More importantly, we identified evidence of corruption of wildlife officers, involvement of politicians and other high-ranking personnel in the illegal wildlife trade, and lack of active enforcement of wildlife law as major challenges to overcome if the illegal capture and domestic trade of wild elephants in Sri Lanka are to be halted. Based on our study, we make a series of recommendations that should result in implementing policy to reduce the trafficking of Asian elephants in Sri Lanka and improve the conservation management of the species.

中文翻译：

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在斯里兰卡非法捕获和野生亚洲象（Elephas maximus）

野生动植物的非法贸易被认为是对全球生物多样性的主要威胁之一。亚洲象（Elephas maximus）在宗教和精神环境中被用作草稿动物，最近又被用作旅游胜地，受到各种文化的高度评价。因此，对圈养大象的需求很高。由于人工繁殖程序不可行，野生亚洲象通常是非法从野外带走的，以维持这些人工饲养的种群。我们首次记录了在2008年1月至2018年12月期间在斯里兰卡非法捕获和交易野生象的程度。我们从斯里兰卡法院系统维护的案件记录中收集了数据，除了档案和与各种利益相关者的访谈收集到的信息外，斯里兰卡还起诉了非法大象交易的嫌疑人。我们记录了55起大象被非法交易的案件。由于捕获行动期间大象的死亡率高以及收集有关这种高度有组织的非法贸易的数据的挑战，这可能是一个低估的现象。男女大象的交易量几乎相等，其中50％以上是年龄在≤5岁的少年。发现2014-2015年缉获的大象比其他时期的总和多得多。我们发现了从野生动植物保护区和国家森林中非法捕获野生大象的证据。更重要的是，我们确定了野生动植物官员腐败，政客和其他高级人员参与非法野生生物贸易的证据，以及缺乏积极执行野生生物法律的证据，这是克服斯里兰卡野生大象非法捕获和国内贸易的主要挑战。要停止。根据我们的研究，我们提出了一系列建议，这些建议应导致实施减少在斯里兰卡贩运亚洲象并改善该物种保护管理的政策。