By Upatissa Pethiyagoda –

Dr. Upatissa Pethiyagoda

Before embarking on a journey, it is prudent to have more than a general idea of where one seeks to arrive. Else it will lead to loafing meaninglessly and getting to “nowhere.” It is obvious that much damage is done to crops and property by animal pests. For reasons unclear, it seems that any action to reduce the menace requires some number

This reminds me of a story. A guy would sit in his verandah, watching his dog who delighted in chasing passing cars. The owner commented “I am waiting for the day he captures one, to see what he does with it.”

The proposed census Is confined to monkeys, (rilawas}, Giant Flying Squirrel (dandu-lenas), and Peacocks.(monaras). Prominent omissions are wild boar, porcupines and elephants, and perhaps several others.

The costs of this census is likely to be very high. What confidence can we have on the integrity and how will these figures help in future actions?.

This is clearly a “Sample Survey”. The sample should be representative of the whole (country), and accurate enough to be extrapolated to reflect the whole. Nothing is known of how the respondents will be chosen. The arbitrary selection of the observation time of 5 minutes during the stipulated day, will clearly be variable to the extent of being useless.

Monkeys will cluster in place where their food is available. Examples would include temples, marketplaces, and popular tourist spots. Giant squirrels are shy creature and largely nocturnal, It will be no surprise to encounter a large number of zero sightings. The damage they cause is large, where there are coconut palms. There must be many who have not seen a single of them and could easily identify one. Peacocks frequent special sites – so any figure could be spurious. They abound in Southern areas and will be at their lowest in semi-urban areas.

For these and many other variables not taken into account, that there is not the faintest possibility of meaningful results. There will be many fictitious returns. As a start, one may consider a test run, using very committed observers to count within five minutes a large collection of monkeys, say close to a market where large quantities of discards will be attractive.

There are so many variables (for instance the enthusiasm of the participants. It is most unlikely that any useful deductions can be made. The largest land animal is the elephant but we are not able to agree how many there are. For instance if the added up figures give something like 95,067 monkeys 3,100 peacocks and 36 Giant squirrels – what would this tell you? And more importantly what next?

President Reagan was told by his doctor “you are in great shape, Mr President but you could do with a bit of exercise. So just do a daily walk of about a mile, and we can check you out again” A week later the doctor had a call and a feeble voice asks “Doctor, this is President Reagan. I am now seven miles away from the White House. What do I do next?”

You get the point?