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Kawanthissa, one of the largest and tallest tuskers Sri Lanka has known, died on October 16, 2026 while being treated for a gunshot wound to his front right leg. His death set off a wave of grief online, and among the tributes was a post that struck a particularly emotional chord. It showed a herd of elephants lying asleep on the ground and said it was “reported” that Kawanthissa had left behind eight calves.
We checked which herd the photo really shows, and whether any source says Kawanthissa had eight calves. Here are the posts that carried the claim.
Social Media Posts:
Others shared the same picture, and one copy added the words “He is a father.”
Claim under review: That Kawanthissa was reported to have eight calves, and that they are the elephants sleeping in the photo. We checked the origin of the photo and whether any source supports the number “eight”.
Fact Check:
The Photo Shows a Chinese Elephant Herd Filmed by Drone in 2021
A keyword search for the photo, and a comparison with the original footage we found, showed that it comes from China’s “wandering elephant herd”, which drew worldwide attention in 2021. A herd of 15 wild elephants had walked about 500 kilometers north from the Xishuangbanna nature reserve. On the morning of June 7, 2021, a drone operated by the Yunnan forest fire brigade filmed them sleeping in a forest near Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. The Associated Press reported that the photo was taken in Kunming’s Jinning district (AP).
A frame from the drone video, published by China’s CGTN on June 8, 2021, can be seen here. Set against the viral photo, every detail matches: the elephant with a small tusk at the top of the frame, the elephant with its trunk curled, the calf lying between the adults, the two elephants lying in a row on the right, and the green bush in the bottom-left corner. The elephants are in exactly the same position.
A research article on this herd in the journal Conservation Letters called it an “iconic photo” and credited it to the Yunnan forest fire department (here). According to AP, the image was viewed more than 200 million times on Chinese social media (here).
Citing China’s Xinhua news agency, AP reported that the herd consisted of six adult females, three adult males, three sub-adults and three calves (AP). The photo therefore shows a Chinese family herd, mothers included, not the offspring of a single tusker.
No Source Says Kawanthissa Had Eight Calves
The posts speak of a “reported” news item but never say what that report was or who made it. We searched news reports and statements by the Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Ministry of Environment in Sinhala, English, and Tamil, and found no record of Kawanthissa having eight calves.
Statements by the Director General of Wildlife Conservation, the Minister of Environment and the veterinarians who treated him dealt only with his treatment, death, post-mortem examination and the investigations (here and here).
Kawanthissa was thought to be between 50 and 60 years old. He stood about 11 feet tall and carried tusks more than six feet long. He was first sighted in 2008 and was named in 2015 after King Kawanthissa, the father of King Dutugemunu. For years he roamed the Galgamuwa, Usgala and Siyambalangamuwa areas of the Kurunegala district (here), and he drew wider attention after the death of the Siyambalangamuwa tusker in 2012 (here). None of these reports mentions any calves.
Bull Elephants Do Not Raise Calves, and Paternity Can Only Be Proved by Genetic Testing
An elephant herd is made up of females and their young. Asian bull elephants leave the herd they were born into at around 14 years of age and live alone or with other males, joining females only for short periods (here).
Elephant biologist Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando has noted that bull elephants in Sri Lanka range over an area about four times larger than usual during their annual musth period of about two months, and that this is linked to breeding (here).
A cow elephant gives birth to a single calf after a gestation of 18 to 22 months, and it is the mother who suckles the calf for two to four years. Other females in the herd also help care for it (here). A bull sleeping with “his calves” as a family is therefore not how elephants behave.
The offspring of a wild bull can only be confirmed by genetic analysis. A study that used genetic analysis to trace the fathers of 119 calves born over 22 years in an African elephant population found that older bulls, particularly those in musth, sired the most calves (here). An old bull like Kawanthissa, who lived in the wild for decades, may well have fathered calves. But we found no record of any such genetic study on him, and there is no basis for the number “eight”.
Tuskers Are Extremely Rare, Which Makes Kawanthissa’s Death a Tragedy
Fewer than 7 percent of male elephants in Sri Lanka carry tusks, compared with about 45 percent in northern India and about 95 percent in southern India (here). Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando has said that the capture of tuskers in the past removed them from the gene pool and increased the number of tuskless bulls.
The 2024 survey put Sri Lanka’s wild elephant population at 7,451. The Minister of Environment said the number of tuskers had risen by 9.2 percent, but did not give a total figure (here). Social media carried various theories on how tusks are inherited, but we found no genetic study in the scientific literature that confirms any of them.
The Minister said a special protection programme would be launched for the remaining tuskers (here), and a Kurunegala wildlife officer said the law would be enforced against those responsible for the killing (here).
Our report on other fake posts that spread after Kawanthissa’s death is here.
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Conclusion:
The viral photo said to show tusker Kawanthissa’s eight calves actually shows a wild elephant herd, mothers included, filmed by drone near Kunming in China’s Yunnan province on June 7, 2021. The match with the AP and CGTN footage from that day is exact.
No official statement, news report or scientific study says Kawanthissa had eight calves. As an old bull he may have fathered calves, but the number of offspring of a wild elephant cannot be stated without genetic testing, and no such study on Kawanthissa exists.
