Easa Lebbe Muhammed Jamsith
Tears, 2022
Sri Lanka
Category - Humanity versus Nature
On the morning of January 5, 2022, I learned that an elephant was about to die in the dump of Oluvil. When I arrived, the animal was curled up and in so much pain that it could not stand up. On examining the elephant, the vet found that it had a blocked esophagus due to the ingestion of polythene waste, which is unfortunately common for animals living in extreme conditions: on an empty stomach, they are attracted by the smell of food from the dumps but then swallow food packaging and other plastic waste indiscriminately. Their ingestion leads to serious health problems and often a very painful death. Three days later, by the time this photograph was submitted to the competition, the elephant had died, despite medical attention, bringing to seven the number of elephants that have died in this same dump due to toxic ingestion.
18-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens - 1/200 sec at f/8 ISO 100