Expensive and high-maintenance, baby elephants have become the ultimate status symbol for Sri Lanka's wealthy elite -- a trend that has horrified conservationists and prompted a government crackdown. Elephants are venerated in mainly Buddhist Sri Lanka and capturing them is illegal. Yet authorities say more than 40 have been stolen from national parks over the last decade and are being kept as pets. "The new rich wannabes want an elephant at home for prestige," said Asian elephant expert Jayantha Jayewardene, recalling an old Sri Lankan aristocratic tradition of keeping herds of the wild beasts.

"This is for social climbing."

Earlier this year, the gift of a baby elephant to the visiting New Zealand Prime Minister John Key sparked anger from animal rights activists who said it was cruel to separate her from her family, and the incident has not been repeated.

Worse, Jayewardene says elephants are almost certainly dying to fuel the illegal trade.

"The maternal instinct in elephants is very, very strong," he said.

"Poachers can't get at a baby without the mother putting up a fight, and it usually ends with the death of the mother."

Guns are used to scare off the mothers, and sometimes to kill them, Jayewardene said.

Elephant calves have also been known to be killed by the tranquiliser drugs used to make them more docile for capture.

Pubudu Weerarathna, the head of the Species Conservation Centre wildlife group, has been involved in a number of rescues and remembers one young elephant succumbing to an overdose of tranquilisers.

Another story had a happier ending -- in 2014 he confronted a group of men transporting a baby elephant on the back of a tractor trailer near a wildlife park. The calf had been sedated, but it made a good recovery.

Intentionally killing an elephant is considered such a serious crime in Sri Lanka it is punishable by death -- though no one has been prosecuted in decades.

Two years ago a group of activists reported catching rustlers red-handed with a baby elephant, but no action was ever taken.

In 2013, wildlife activists raised suspicions of a cover-up by some in the administration of former leader Mahinda Rajapakse after a registry of domesticated elephants disappeared.

The document later re-appeared with enteries doctored -- the case is being investigated by police.