Udawalawe69% of the park’s female elephants were gone by 2018.
Social networks that absorb deaths held until losses outpaced newcomers around 2012, then fractured.
Lantana overran the grassland in Sri Lanka, cutting forage, so fewer calves survived and fewer elephants arrived, researchers say.
The study’s data end in 2018, but ecologist Shermin de Silva says the decline is now faster than predicted.
Her team now tests crops with farmers outside the park that elephants are less likely to damage.
How each outlet framed it
- Ars Technica
- argues resilience fails when steady losses outpace newcomers, and traces the Udawalawe park's origin to a 1970s reservoir settlement
Sources: Ars Technica