More than 2,000 years ago, a large Buddhist community settled in the Yala region of Sri Lanka at the island’s southern tip. Temples were built, water holes dug and big areas of forest cleared for grazing, creating a huge monastic complex, parts of which survive today. Hundreds of years later, when the community went into decline, it left behind a landscape ideal for herbivores such as water buffalo and spotted deer. And where herbivores thrive, carnivores follow.
Today Yala national park, Sri Lanka’s first nature reserve, hosts one of the densest populations of leopards on Earth. At dawn and dusk, they stalk wild boar and sambar deer, before pouncing at a breakneck sprint. Living alongside them are countless insect and bird species, plus 43 other types of mammal from mighty elephants and buffalos to jackals, crocodiles and the endangered sloth bear. There’s a home for them all in the reserve’s vast and biodiverse landscape, stretching from coastal dunes to monsoon forest. In all, Yala covers 1,300 sq kms (500 sq miles) and areas are increasingly being opened to visitors.
