Sweet Tusk

On the eve of the Buddhist New Year, Sri Lanka’s best loved temple elephant, Raja, was taken ill after consuming large amounts of biscuits, chocolate and other delicacies.

Raja gorged on the sweet offerings brought by the thousands of worshippers flocking to the 150-year-old Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo, the island’s capital, in recent days for the holiday.

Elephants usually subsist on a mainly vegetarian diet and are not equipped to cope with such an abundance of rich and processed treats.

The 45-year-old sacred elephant vomited and twitched in its sandy enclosure. The chief zoologist at Colombo University, a vet and many monks assisted the ailing animal.

Source: The Guardian