[RECAP] Pinnawala Photo Walk on Google Tour Builder

[AnuradhaP]

The Pinnawala Photo Walk was held on March 30, 2018 with two participants. It was a very interesting meetup with two participants. It was organized to take some beautiful photos of Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage and do some map editing around it.

This time I thought to tell the story of meetup using a Google Tour Builder. I think this is a very powerful tool which can be used by the Local Guides to tell their stories. Please follow this like to see the Recap of Pinnawala Photo Walk. I hope all of you will enjoy this. If you want to open it in Google Earth, please follow this link.

See it on Google Tour Builder.

See it on Google Earth.

I know some may not like to visit another site to read a meetup Recap, please visit this tour and share your views on using Google Tour Builder and Google Earth Voyage to tell the story.

@TraciC , What do you think? Is it a better way to tell a story of a meetup or other Local Guide related event? The Google Tour Builder can be improved a lot to help people to tell their stories. Is it possible to have a expert on Google Tour Builder to help Google Local Guides in the Connect?

Thank you @TaralaNayanaD for coming all the wat from Ja-Ela and participate in the meetup. You made the difference.

@OSAMA @LucioV @ErmesT @KarenVChin @SoniaK @MahabubMunna @IlankovanT @ValeriaA What do you think? Is it a better way to tell your story? I mean the using the Google Tour Builder. I can not tag more people here. I will tag others in reply section to get their view on this.

This is the Recap video.

- YouTube

The following video shows how you can make paper from Elephant Dung.

Paper from Elephant Dung

The Sound Track I used in the Recap video is a traditional sound track which is called “Gajaga Wannama”(a kind of recitation), which describes the behaviour of elephants. This belongs to the Kandyan dance form. I will write a separate post on this and

there are 18 Wannams in Kandyan dance form.

Do not forget to see the Google Photo Album of this meetup.
Here is the Recap video, I hope you like it.
This is the link to the video on making papers using elephant dung.
Hope you enjoyed this tour and see you all at the next meetup at Kandy.

[IlankovanT]

Beautiful meetup @AnuradhaP . I really like this google tour builder.

Thank you for sharing this beautiful RECAP.

I love both videos, especially making paper from Elephant Dung

Did you see any baby elephants there?

[AnuradhaP]

@IlankovanT Thanks. There were two elephants. You have missed one. ,

[MahabubMunna]

@AnuradhaP Aiya you always unique .your every meetup better then previous one :). hope one day join with your one meetup

[AnuradhaP]

@MahabubMunna Thanks. I am expecting you in Sri Lanka. We will definitely do a meetup here.

[LucioV]

Hi @AnuradhaP ! Yes, it’s a great way to tell a story!

I’ve started to create something, but never finished! So turned out that commenting a shared photo album, for me worked better!

But it’s a great recap and, of course, very well told!

[AsankaRubasinghe]

Wonderful article aiye…One of the most interesting thing the paper from dung…Very innovative …

[Badruddeen]

Excellent job Anu @AnuradhaP

i am going through it and enjoying.

Best wishes from Maldives

[DavidTito]

@AnuradhaP is that a Zoo captivity? I noticed they put some stuff on the fence post is that to stop them from getting splinters? and the guy making paper out of Elephant

Dong Wow how did come with idea thanks for sharing bro, it was interesting

[NareshDarji]

Great meetup @AnuradhaP

Thanks for sharing this beautiful recap and videos with us.

[Haseeb]

Thank you @AnuradhaP for sharing your recap in such a unique way

[RohithaF]

Hi @DavidTito

Pinnawala is an orphanage. It is home for displaced elephants for multiple reasons from their natural, limiting and diminishing natural habitats. Pinnawla, perhaps the world’s first of its kind, holds a unique disposition in the ex-situ animal care, only seconded to the case of Pandas in China, in magnitude, proportions and quality of care.

Incidentally, Pinnawala was established in mid 1970’s by a visionary politician and diplomat Hon.P.B.G. Kalugalle, who represented this remote area in the parliament of Ceylon just a few years after it was re-named Sri Lanka. His limited vision was rescuing wild Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus)in distress, just for the simple reasons Pinnawala provided what is most important to elephants for survival; food, space and water, in abundance. In addition Pinnawala is home for traditionally trained mahouts, the individual personal support workers, life-long-friends, barefoot-elephant doctors and human companions to elephants in captivity. Elephants love coconut leaves. Pinnawla is blessed with coconut plantations. The river Maoya provides mammoth amount of water elephants need for their daily rituals.

Coincidentally, Kalugalle was also the Minister of tourism, at its boom in paradise isle Sri Lanka. Pinnawla after decades of its initial humble establishment has now become a universal tourist attraction.

The beautiful elephant-human relationship is ancient and is older than country’s two-and-half-centuries written history. Pinnawla is providing home for fewer than 100 elephants. This represents near-half the number of elephant in captivity. Sri Lanka is nursing currently 200-250 captive elephants ranking 7^th by numbers out of 13 countries in the world.

While British rule in Ceylon was acclaimed for establishing elephant population statistics it was also marked as the beginning of destruction of Sri Lankan mammoths. Very similar to the fate of the American bison, industrial revolution, establishments of rubber, coffee and tea plantation by raping rain forests and destructive hunting for pleasure was responsible for reducing the number of elephants by 90 per cent. The second era of catastrophic population reduction was dawned with the ethnic civil war that lasted 30 years and the attitude developed among peasants to regard elephants as agricultural pests. 20,000 strong elephant population at the turn of the century in this 250-miles-long and 175-miles-wide land, has now been reduced to 2000 elephants.

Pinnawla is not in fact the complete but neat perfect solution to human-elephant conflict. It is a breeding program, ex-situ conservation land, orphanage in true sense and a five star elephant hospital for elephant that got wounded by poaching, land mines, booby traps or bullet and suffered with starvation and malnutrition to receive expert and competent care under the supervision of Department of Wildlife Conservation.

References

Netflix (2010) “Chandani: The Daughter of the Elephant Whisperer” Netflix

https://www.allflicks.fr/film/70175127/

Sukumar,R (2006) “A Brief Review of the Status, Distribution and Biology of Wild Asian Elephants Elephas maximus” International Zoo Yearbook 2006https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1748-1090.2006.00001.x

The department of National Zoological Gardens (2018) “Pinnawala”

http://nationalzoo.gov.lk/elephantorphanage/

Wikipedia (2018) “Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnawala_Elephant_Orphanage

[AnuradhaP]

@LucioV , Thanks. We love to see one of your stories online.

[AnuradhaP]

@NalinK @user_not_found @UpulW @HelloSamsonR @ayann Do you like this Google Tour Builder?

[AnuradhaP]

@AlejandraMaria I like to see your story on merging two cities on a Google Tour Builder. How is the progress?

[AnuradhaP]

@RohithaF Nice to hear after a longtime. Thank you for long explanation. @DavidTito I think Rohitha answered your question. @RohithaF Did you enjoy my Recap?

[DavidTito]

@RohithaF I heard and read and watch documentaries about Elephants, and this really nice comment above there. It’s like a [Recap] comment very beautiful of you to display such nature thank you @RohithaF

[NirajBhusal]

Awesome @AnuradhaP .

[DavidTito]

@AnuradhaP I watched movie’s from time to time about Elephants they have lots of meaning

[AnuradhaP]

@Badruddeen Thanks.