Officials said that Sri Lanka has started a nationwide census of wild animals including monkeys and peacocks from Saturday. After causing pain to the farmers by causing damage to the crops, the counting of wild animals has been started to make an accurate estimate for their control.

Around 40,000 local officials were deployed around farmlands and settlements to count wild boars, loris, peacocks and monkeys during a five-minute period on Saturday morning.

In the north-central district of Anuradhapura, farmer families gathered in the open square and counted the animals and recorded them on the sheet provided by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Ministry official Ajith Pushpa Kumara told reporters in the capital Colombo, 'We are counting wild animals that destroy crops and harass farmers in a short time to avoid double counting.'

He said, 'We hope that the result of the calculation will be about 80 percent correct . Once we know the number of these animals, we can take the next steps to deal with them.'

Residents of Anuradhapura, 200 kilometers north of Colombo, went out to the fields early in the morning to prepare for the wildlife census.

'We have had a very successful count from many enthusiastic participants . They are the farmers, who had to continuously suffer damage to crops.' 

Chaminda Dissanayake, an employee of the Department of Agriculture who enumerated in the Mihintale area of ​​Anuradhapura, told AFP, 'In our enumeration, 227 tok monkeys and 65 purple langurs have been registered.' 

Meanwhile, opposition MP Nalin Bandara criticized the census and called it a 'waste of money'. 

'It's a complete failure, a waste of money . What can be said about insects that attack fields at night ? They are not being counted,' said Bandara, 'new technology could have been used for counting.'

According to officials, more than one-third of the crops are destroyed by wild animals, including elephants, but since elephants are considered sacred in Sri Lanka, they are protected by law.