Colombo Wildlife by Time Away
How long you are willing to be away from your Colombo hotel decides which animals you see. Give it two hours and you get langurs and monitor lizards. Give it a night and you get orphaned elephant calves. Give it several days and you can be in a jeep while hundreds of wild elephants walk out onto a reservoir. Colombo itself is thin on wildlife, so most of the good options sit a long drive away.
Two hours: Beddagana Wetland Park
This is the only wildlife outing inside the Colombo area. Beddagana Wetland Park covers 18 hectares on the edge of Diyawanna Lake in Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, east of the centre, and is managed by the Urban Development Authority . Wooden walkways lift you over mangrove and marsh; watch the branches for purple-faced langurs and the water’s edge for water monitors, and bring binoculars for the 50-plus bird species.
It opens 06:00 to 18:00. The foreign ticket is about LKR 1,000 to 1,500; residents pay LKR 100 to 200. A PickMe tuk-tuk is the easy way there and back. The first hour after opening is the best for birds, and it is the coolest walking of the day.
The zoo and the orphanage
Two animal attractions near Colombo draw big crowds. Dehiwala Zoo, in the city’s southern suburbs, still stages a daily elephant show with trick routines, and welfare groups have documented chaining and bullhooks there. Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is open, with river bathing at 10:00 and 14:00, and is criticised internationally for captive breeding, chaining and its bathing show. Neither is the way to see elephants well.
One night: the Elephant Transit Home at Udawalawe
The Department of Wildlife Conservation runs this centre, rearing orphaned calves until they can rejoin wild herds, a programme Born Free has supported since 2002 . Nobody rides or handles the calves: visitors watch feeding time from a platform. Feeding times are said to be 10:30, 14:30 and 18:00, with a foreign adult ticket of roughly $5 plus VAT, so check both when you arrive.
Udawalawe is not a day out from Colombo. Plan it as an overnight on a route south, and add a jeep through Udawalawe National Park, where wild elephants can be seen in every month. Packages that combine the two can be found by searching Udawalawe jeep safaris .
The verdict: for anyone with one elephant experience on the list, it should be Udawalawe: wild herds in the park and calves on their way back to them, with no contact.
Several days: the bigger parks and the sea
- Minneriya and Kaudulla, in the Cultural Triangle, more than 4 hours from Colombo: as many as 300 wild elephants come out onto the exposed reservoir grassland to graze and bathe between July and October, best from August. A half-day jeep with a ranger is about LKR 16,000 to 30,000 per jeep, split between however many of you fill it. Viator lists Minneriya safaris for comparison.
- Yala, 5 to 6 hours away in the south-east, is the park for leopards. Dry spells can close Blocks 1 and 2 for weeks, so check with the wildlife department before you book.
- Mirissa, on the south coast, runs boat trips for blue whales and spinner dolphins from November to April only. Choose a licensed operator, and expect a boat that keeps its distance and never chases.
On every trip
- National park fees are per person in US dollars, with service charge, VAT and jeep hire added; ask for the full figure.
- Never feed a wild elephant or approach one on foot along a park road.
- Welfare standards at south-coast turtle hatcheries are mixed; find out how eggs and hatchlings are treated before paying.
Read more: family-friendly activities in Colombo for Beddagana with children, and the 6-day Colombo itinerary for a route with room for Udawalawe.
For Beddagana, wear light long sleeves and DEET-based repellent: the mangrove boardwalks are prime ground for the daytime-biting mosquitoes that carry dengue.