elephants
Sentenced to Life: Elephants in Captivity
"This fascination by the public to see elephants up-close and personal has resulted in disastrous consequences for captive elephants. As a direct result of the public's desire to get closer, elephants live a miserable life: confined to small places, forced to submit to human dominance, fed only processed food due to restricted living space. Elephants deteriorate, both physically and emotionally, in an environment created to accommodate public interaction. If the only way that humans can know and enjoy the gentleness and spirituality of elephants is by interacting with them, then the species is doomed."
– Carol Buckley, founder, the Elephant Sanctuary
Elephants are highly intelligent, social animals who form strong, permanent bonds with their families. The social structure of free-roaming elephant herds is extremely complex and cannot be duplicated in captivity. In nature, females remain with their mothers for life and males until they are 10 to 15 years old. Babies are not usually weaned until they are about 4 years or older.
In the wild, elephants have the freedom to walk many miles a day, swim in watering holes, and interact with their families. Elephants are known to mourn their dead, teach their youngsters proper herd behavior and healthy habits, like caking themselves in mud to avoid sunburn. Males approaching maturity receive guidance and wisdom of other bulls in order to become well-adjusted adults.
In captivity, elephants are held in small enclosures that do not come close to approximating their native habitat. In fact, American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) regulations require as little as one-fortieth of an acre of yard space per elephant. There is little opportunity for the development of normal social structures. Some zoos still chain elephants for long hours and subject them to forceful, coercive training methods that include physical punishment. Although a more humane elephant management technique, known as protective contact, has been developed, the AZA refuses to require its use in accredited zoos.
Even government experts recognize the serious deficiencies of captive conditions for elephants:
“Elephants in captivity have no herd structure because most of our captive situations do not represent natural elephant herd development. Herd size in zoos has rarely grown to a size in which multiple infants have a chance to mature together. This social void can impact an elephant later in life, not knowing or understanding appropriate social behavior if an elephant is moved into a different group adolescent and sub adults will want to spar and even fight to establish their positions. This would obviously be abnormal behavior to a wild elephant and in captivity, sometimes leads to injury and even death, if not observed and controlled.” (Emphasis added.)
– Matriarchal Herd Structure, Outline of U.S.D.A. Elephant Course, Seattle, August 3, 1998
“There are no substitutes for walking in a restricted environment, no enrichment strategies that motivate a captive elephant sufficiently, no boomer balls or tire that replace walking and no food dispensers that will create activity patterns in elephants that even come close to being beneficial to the long-term management of captive elephants.
The absence of walking from an elephant program, considering the elephant is genetically programmed to move must have dramatic long-term effect on the elephants physical and mental stability and must ultimately affect it’s longevity and propagation.”– Walking, Outline of U.S.D.A. Elephant Course, Seattle, August 3, 1998
The confinement, isolation from family, lack of freedom of movement, and absence
of a normal social structure take an intense physical and emotional toll on
elephants. Captive elephants commonly suffer from foot and joint problems,
stress related disorders such as impaired immune and kidney function,
stereotypic behaviors such as weaving, and aggression, sometimes directed at
keepers to frequently fatal ends.
Elephants in captivity die young. At least 90 African elephants, most captured in the wild, have died in North American facilities since 1990, and not a single death was from old age. In fact, 92 percent never even reached age 40, far short of their 70-year life expectancy. The statistics for Asian elephants are similarly grim.
Even under the best of conditions, elephants “are actually very poor candidates for life in captivity,” according to David Hancocks, former director of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, WA. Hancocks doubts “if a dozen elephants worldwide are in truly good psychological, behavioral, and social conditions. Their requirements are so substantial—it is probably beyond the capabilities of most zoos to even begin to resolve them.”
According to the North County Times (May 1, 2003, Alan Roocroft, an elephant care consultant, and former elephant care specialist at the [San Diego] Wild Animal Park, agreed that in general, elephants are harmed by living in zoos. He stated:
‘I've come across a lot of dysfunctional elephants in zoos,’ he said. ‘They're the end product of the care that we've been giving them. So we need to take a closer look at all elephant care in captivity. We need to put that under a microscope and really get down to looking at are elephants doing well in captivity?’
(Source: In Defense of Animals)