• 6 including int’l YouTuber consumed peacock meat inside Nat’l Park 
• A Vedda leader acknowledges wrongdoing of suspects involved  

The Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) stated that plans are in place to promptly apprehend the suspects responsible for the incident of slaughtering a peacock, roasting its meat, and consuming it inside the Maduru-Oya National Park.

Considering the information presented by the Wildlife Ranger-Henanigala, W.M. Kumarasiri Wijekoon, last week, the Mahiyangana Magistrate ordered the arrest of six individuals including a foreign national who illegally entered the Maduru-Oya National Park and posted footage of slaughtering and eating a peacock on YouTube.

When contacted by The Daily Morning, the Police Media Spokesperson and Deputy Inspector General of Police Nihal Thalduwa said that it is the DWC that would be making the relevant arrests, adding that the Police has no involvement in the matter.

The Daily Morning then contacted Wijekoon, who said that plans are in place to promptly arrest the suspects. "A team of officers on Tuesday (18) visited the Dambana area in Mahiyangana and confirmed the identity of the suspects. They also met with a deputy leader of the Vedda community, and he also admitted that what they (suspects) have done is illegal." 

Emphasising that the legal provisions related to wildlife are equally applicable to everyone, he said that the Vedda community members have been granted no permission to kill animals. "Killing animals and selling their meat is illegal. This is a law that is applicable to everyone. Just because they (Veddas) live in forest areas, they cannot kill animals."

The incident in question, believed to have occurred in 2019 or 2020, recently surfaced after a video gained widespread attention on social media platforms, accumulating over eight million views and sparking public outrage, leading to an official investigation.

The indigenous suspects are said to have used traditional hunting tools like bows and arrows to capture the peacock, a protected species under the law. In the video, the peacock was depicted being roasted and consumed in accordance with the community's traditional practices, including being dipped in bees’ honey.