About elephants
Elephants are majestic animals to view, whether it is in the wild or a zoo. They are often at the center of attention wherever they are because of their massive size and beauty. Unfortunately, keeping elephants in captivity has been found to cause a myriad of issues. They include problems of joint and foot and lower reproduction rates. It has resulted in researchers questioning whether the benefits outweigh the difficulties captive elephants face. In zoo keeping, the most crucial task is usually to preserve the lives of endangered species to release them into the world in the future. Therefore, keeping animals in zoos should be done sustainably, including maintaining good health and natural behaviors, and helping them reproduce successfully.
There are around 400,000 African elephants with another 125,000 wild specimens speculated to exist worldwide. Since the 1990s, their numbers have added up compared to an estimated three to five million thought to have lived between 1930 and 1940. African elephants are a group of related females and their offspring in the wild. The oldest and largest female leads the group and is commonly referred to as a matriarch. How a female is ranked determines the number of resources she is given and which kind it is. They spend most of their time foraging on plant species and parts, walking, resting, and interacting with others. Elephants communicate in different ways, and they have a great sense of smell, and with this, they can inspect people in close contact. Apart from that, it also enables them to get information about mating over distances. They also communicate through high and low frequency. High frequency is audible to humans, but for elephants, the low frequency is audible over long distances. Research has found a relationship between sound and excitement in elephants; the more disturbed it is, the higher the noise it makes.
As for the male, they leave their family group around the age of 14 to live alone or in loose groups since they are more independent. The older bulls get to teach them appropriate social behavior. Consequently, males and female groups live separate lives and only meet for makes to test whether a female is still reproductive. They do this by smelling their urine and genitals. If the female is okay, they go on ahead and mate.
African elephants in captivity spend the same amount of time feeding as they do in the wild. They walk less and rest more compared to when they are out in the wild. Less movement in the zoo is because there is no need to find food that is in plenty, and humans control mating. Social behaviors happen mostly between a mother and her calf. Most of the research on captive elephants is done on the border between temperate and subtropical climate zone. African elephants are adapted to the hot, arid climate, making it challenging to keep elephants outside all year in Scandinavia. A northern temperate to subtropical climate zone is found in Scandinavia. Slippery grounds are too high of a risk for elephants to be outside even for a short time since they can easily be injured. Indoor halls can comprehend such situations. For elephants to be comfortable with it, the rooms should allow the animals to perform their natural behaviors.
Rejection of new environments by elephants has been noticed. They move away from the regions they do not like. The further away an area is from human activity, the more elephants explore it. When facing new surroundings, they show increased social behavior. It means that elephants facing unfamiliar situations with new groups could make rejection very likely, leading to heightened stress levels. Therefore, zoos are advised not to change the environment and group arrangement for the elephants. The presence of visitors in the zoo leads to a rise in stress levels and less movement. Wild elephants tend to react with vigilance, avoidance, and aggression in human beings’ presence and pose a threat. The zoo should avoid heightening stress levels for the elephants for their own best interest by limiting interaction between group members and caretakers.
When elephants are in captivity, the changes in their immediate social and physical environment have a massive impact. It results in stress, causing other health problems such as infanticide, stillbirths, stereotypes, and imperfect mothering. It goes against their base instinct, which is to protect and nurture their young. “Between 44 and 74% of captive African elephants perform stereotypies.” It is when they sway forwards and backward or side to side. Several studies have confirmed the correlation between the exhibition of these symptoms and the time spent indoors in zoos. To eradicate this, the money could be used to increase the enclosure size to ensure elephants are housed together. It could also be used to design the enclosure in a sophisticated manner that will feel like home. Around 50m2 is recommended for a single animal, 200m2 for indoor enclosures, and 4000m2 for outdoor enclosures by the Swedish Board of Agriculture.
Elephants like Happy in the Bronx Zoo have opened up a lot of debate into the conditions in which they are kept. She was kept in isolation, and about 87,000 people signed a petition asking that a study on her health and well-being be conducted. The conflict is made worse by the fact “the zoo made a conscious decision to end its elephant program, opting to shift its resources to help endangered elephants in the wild.” With more funds, zoos like these will be more inclined to ensure the elephants in their care live in enclosures that are satisfactory to them. In her lifetime, Happy has been paired with various elephants, all of who have developed severe conditions resulting in euthanization. There is no telling how much this has damaged her emotionally, and to top it all off, she ended up in an enclosure alone. This is despite the various studies stating that elephants are social animals and thrive when in the company of others.
According to the zoos estimation, creating a new elephant habitat and barn would cost about $80 million, which is why they have shifted their focus to elephants in the world. However, with donations from well-wishers, the idea does not seem unattainable. The $100,000, when donated to the zoo for the enclosure and other contributions, would ensure that this construction started happening. No amount of money is too much in the effort of attaining comfort for these elephants. If this is not an attainable goal, Happy could be released into a wildlife sanctuary, and the money would go towards her care. Here, she could live with other elephants, in an environment close to their natural habitat.