The elephants from Sri Lanka were considered more easily adapt for war than those from the mainland. Their excellent behavioral qualities were well known to the Greeks as far back as the 3rd Century BC, in the time of Alexander the Great. Onescritus, who was an Admiral of the Fleet for Alexander the Great (and probably the first European to describe the trained elephants of Ceylon), stated that the elephants from Taprobane (later Ceylon and then Sri Lanka) “are bigger, more fierce and furious for war service than those of India,”. Greek writers like Megasthenes (circa 300 BC) and Aelian (44AD) corroborate this. The Sixth Century writer Cosmos Indicopleustes says that the elephant from Sri Lanka was highly priced in India for its excellence in war.

The King of Kandy maintained a special unit for all matters concerning elephants, including their capture, training, conservation and export. This unit was under the chief officer known as the Gajanayake Nilame. The Gajanayake Nilame, was of a high caste and received many favors, including land, from the king. The elephant catchers and keepers were from the lower castes.

During the times of the Sinhala kings, even though there were tens of thousands of elephants in all parts of the country, this animal was afforded complete protection by royal decree. Accordingly, no elephant could be captured, killed or maimed without the king’s authority. All offenders were punished by death. Unlike today the cultivators of that time could not plead that the elephants were harmed in the protection of their crops. Any depredation or damage to crops by wild elephants had to be prevented by stout fencing together with organized and effective watching by the farmers. It is interesting to note that though there were many more elephants then than now, Sri Lanka was considered to be the granary of the East.

When the Portuguese captured the maritime provinces of Sri Lanka they found a flourishing export trade in elephants. They quickly got involved in the elephant export trade, and obtained elephants as a tribute from the Sinhala people through their leaders. Thereafter they captured animals on their own. The Portuguese also set up a revenue-gathering unit, similar to the king’s organization, known as the Elephant Hunt. The Portuguese maintained an annual demand of 37 elephants for export from two kraals.

The Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, is smaller than the African. It has smaller ears, and typically, only the males have large external tusks.
The world population of Asian elephantsalso called Indian Elephantsis estimated to be around 60,000, about a tenth of the number of African elephants. More precisely, it is estimated that there are between 38,000 and 53,000 wild elephants and between 14,500 and 15,300 domesticated elephants in Asia with perhaps another 1,000 scattered around zoos in the rest of the world. The Asian elephants' decline has possibly been more gradual than the African and caused primarily by poaching and habitat destruction by human encroachment.

Several subspecies of Elephas maximus have been identified, using morphometric data and molecular markers. Elephas maximus maximus (Sri Lankan Elephant) is found only on the island of Sri Lanka. It is the largest of the Asians. There are an estimated 3,000–4,500 members of this subspecies left today in the wild, although no accurate census has been carried out recently. Large males can weigh upward to 5,400 kg (12,000 lb) and stand over 3.4 tall. Sri Lankan males have very large cranial bulges, and both sexes have more areas of depigmentation than other Asians. Typically, their ears, face, trunk, and belly have large concentrations of pink-speckled skin. There is an orphanage for elephants in Pinnawala, Sri Lanka, which plays a large role in protecting the Sri Lankan Elephant from extinction.

Asian Elephants

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta. Three species of elephant are living today: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant and the Asian Elephant (also known as the Indian Elephant). All other species and genera of Elephantidae are extinct, some since the last ice age: dwarf forms of mammoths may have survived as late as 2,000 BC Elephants and other Elephantidae were once classified with other thick-skinned animals in a now invalid order, Pachydermata.

Elephants are the largest land animals now living. The elephant's gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms They typically live for 50 to 70 years, but the oldest recorded elephant lived for 82 years. The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilograms with a shoulder height of 4.2 metres, a metre (yard) taller than the average male African elephant. The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf or a large pig, were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.

The elephant has appeared in cultures across the world. They are a symbol of wisdom in Asian cultures and are famed for their memory and intelligence, where they are thought to be on par with cetaceans and hominids. Aristotle once said the elephant was "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind".[The word "elephant" has its origins in the Greek meaning "ivory" or "elephant"
Healthy adult elephants have no natural predators, although lions may take calves or weak individuals.They are, however, increasingly threatened by human intrusion and poaching. Once numbering in the millions, the African elephant population has dwindled to between 470,000 and 690,000 individuals according to a March 2007 estimate. While the elephant is a protected species worldwide, with restrictions in place on capture, domestic use, and trade in products such as ivory, there has been an increase in poaching in recent years, perhaps attributable to the CITES reopening of "one time" ivory stock sales. Certain African nations report a decrease of their elephant populations by as much as two-thirds, and populations in even some protected areas are in danger of being eliminated Since recent poaching has increased by as much as 45%, the current population is unknown (2008).