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The Three "B's" of Lanka

The Three "B's" of Lanka

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 It is all too easy to mistake what Sri Lankans might call the “Three Big B’s” for Mr Bandaranaike Senior, Mrs Bandaranaike Senior, and Mrs Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. But in fact, Sri Lanka’s Three Big B’s are not politicians. They are its bears, buffalo, and boars. And remarkably, each beast shares a close and initial affinity with those other, and still more famous, Big Three “B’s” of the classical music world: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. The buffalo, that most solid, refined, and traditional of creatures ever seen in all corners of the island, is the Bach of the mammalian world. The wild boar, with its laudable pack control and mastery of its environment, is the unmistakable Brahmas of the jungle and grassland, blending the complexity of its world with ease. And the bear, of course, is the Beethoven of the country: powerful, introspective, heroic. “It seems,” wrote Beethoven in his most bear-like mood, “as if every tree said to me, 'Holy! Holy!' Who can ever express the ecstasy of the woods! Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed.” As to the Sri Lankan sloth bear, although it is most often found in the dry zones of the country – such as Yala and Wilpattu – it is never far from trees, for in the trees it finds the ants, honey, and fruit it especially loves. Hanging like the strangest of fruits themselves, they will stay in the branches for hours at a time, often bringing cubs with them to join the feast. Having feasted, it will usually then continue to hang on in the most relaxed of ways, enabled by twenty sharp, curved claws that give them the kind of grip that denture wearers can only dream about. To see one suspended in so complete a seventh heaven is, of course, to call immediately to mind the Allegretto or "Shepherd's song” from Beethoven’s Pastoral itself – that moment when all that remains is pure gratitude and celebration of the tranquillity of the natural world. Even so, the bear is easily tempted to descend from its high table for termites – a food item of indulgent delight, for which their highly mobile snouts are exceptionally well designed. With nostrils closed, the snouts become vacuums, sucking out the termites from their nest. And their long claws enable them to dig the nest ever deeper till the last juicy termite has been consumed. Sri Lanka’s Sloth Bear is a unique endemic subspecies of the very same sloth bear that inhabits the Indian subcontinent, in ever-declining numbers from India to Bhutan, Nepal, and, until recently, Bangladesh. It is a little smaller in size than its Indian cousin, with shorter fur and, sadly, sometimes without the cuddly-looking white tummy fur of its northern relative. Even so, it is no midget, typically measuring six feet in length and weighing in at up to 300 pounds for a male or 200 pounds for a female. Once found in plentiful numbers across the island, they are now in severe decline, with an estimated 500-1000 bears in the wild today. The destruction of their habitats has been instrumental in their decline, but the fear they engender amongst village populations has also played its part. They are often hunted and killed, with a reputation for damaging property and killing or maiming domestic animals, humans running like a wave of terror before them. The “sloth” part of their name is somewhat misleading, for the bears are quite capable of reaching speeds of thirty miles an hour – faster than the fastest human yet recorded. Evolution has cast the sloth bear towards the Grumpy Old Man side of the mammalian spectrum – brooding, bothered, and bold, as if Beethoven’s late soul-searching Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111 had assumed a furry life of its own. Its poor sight and hearing leave it very dependent on its sense of smell, so it can all too often be surprised by what seems like the abrupt appearance of something threatening – like a human – which it will attack with warrior-like ferocity before asking any questions. In this, the bear It is very solitary, living alone in the forest except for those rare moments when it seeks a mate. Reproduction is not its strongest skill, and most females produce a single cub that stays with them for two to three years, the first months of which are endearingly spent living or travelling on its mother's back. D.J.G. Hennessy, a policeman who had a couple of bears on his land in Horowapotana in 1939, noted the emotive articulateness of their paw-sucking. Hed wrote that “ the significance of the notes on which the bear sucks his paw is interesting; a high whine and rapid sucking denotes impatience and anger, a deep note like the humming of a hive full of bees on a summer’s day indicates that he is contented and pleased with life, a barely audible note shows great happiness while a silent suck in which he usually indulges in just before going to sleep on a full stomach denotes the acme of bliss”. It was as if, ...
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