Hakka patas

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Hakka patas, also known as “jaw exploders”, are improvised explosive devices that detonate when bitten. They are the number one killer of elephants in Sri Lanka. The first reports of these “jaw bombs” emerged in 2008, and although the main target of poachers is wild boars, there have been an increasing number of instances where elephants are targeted.

The jaw bombs are made by the hunters themselves from widely available supplies and sold to farmers at the village level, making it difficult to crack down on the practice. Hakka patas are typically targeted at wild boars and other wildlife for bushmeat, which they kill instantly. Elephants are much bigger, so while the explosives don’t kill them right away, they inflict gruesome mouth injuries and a long-drawn-out death from infection or starvation.

These devices are a combination of gunpowder and fragments of metal or rock packed tightly together. When bitten into or crushed inside an animal’s mouth, they explode, shattering the jaw and destroying the tongue and other soft tissue. The resulting infection can spread down through the esophagus, often leading to extremely painful deaths.

See also

• Elephant
• Human-elephant conflict

External links

• Jaw bombs, the deadliest threat to Sri Lanka’s elephants, are scaling up Mongabay
• Archived: ‘Hakka Patas’: The killer trap Daily Mirror