Another leopard run over in Yala, is a boycott the only option left?

When someone suggested that a boycott of the Yala wildlife park be organised after a leopard was killed I was not in favour. I thought what was needed was a proper system of visitor management. What a fool I was. Several more leopards have been killed by visitors since then, in the latest instance the carcass being fed to the crocodiles to cover their tracks.

The jeep drivers who are responsible for this are connected to a powerful politicians from the South and cannot be disciplined. The park rangers and Wildlife Department have no power to administer a proper system of visitor management, even if one were designed for them.

The only option now left is to boycott the damned place, let the jeep drivers and their mafia rot in the tropical heat. They will eventually turn to poaching, I reckon, but that was also inevitable. Every conceivable resource is being raped, anyway, why should the wildlife parks be exempt?

In any case, traveling in this country is proving to be a nightmare and the constantly rising fuel costs make it am unaffordable luxury. Even the outstation roads are crowded with in-disciplined trishaws, vans and buses; negotiating the roads is extremely stressful and sometimes quite dangerous.

Many of the most picturesque locations have been defiled by construction and signage. Illegal, ugly, badly constructed beer gardens, restaurants and hotels dot every nook and corner; telecom towers and windmills sprout like mushrooms.

There is growth all right, but it is an ugly, unhealthy growth, like the toadstools spring up overnight. Ceylon may have been paradise, Sri Lanka may have been nice, but now that we have developed to the stage of New Banana Republic, its looking downright ugly.

I would urge responsible citizens not to feed the monster, find your amusements elsewhere and leave those animals alone.