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Elephants in Captivity: An Issue That Needs to be Addressed

Elephants are a well known species; Nevertheless, the social groups of these species is an
important aspect of them. Elephants are never alone, but always seem to be in a pack. The
mothers are either with their calves or there is a group of families within one pack. Because of
this, researchers have studied elephants and their social groups. The social groups of elephants
are very important in understanding their behaviors and interactions with each other and it also
proves their intelligence. However, elephants lose these social relationships in captivity.
Vance, Archie and Moss of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project published their
research on elephant social behavior in the article, Social Networks in African Elephants, in
which they explain that elephant social groups are based on the seasons. They explain, In the
dry season, social groups tend to be less cohesive and smaller during the wet season, families
often travel in intact groups, whole families often fuse with other families, and sometimes
hundreds of animals can be found together in one continuous aggregation (274). Elephants have
a fission-fusion system during the seasons. They explain, While most such social animals live in
groups with a stable composition, fission-fusion species live in labile societies where social
groups can divide into sub-groups or fuse with other groups over short periods of time (Vance
274). The fission goes on during the dry seasons when they travel in small groups and fuse in
the wet seasons to create large groups. This ties into an elephants intelligence because they do
this to avoid competition.
The purpose of the experiment was to isolate factors that predict animal social behavior
(275). In 1983, researchers, Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole, found that the reason why
elephants social groups change during the seasons is based on resources and decreasing
competition for them (275). This brings in the intelligence of elephants because it demonstrates

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how they do this for survival. Elephants avoid having a lack of resources, so they fuse into big
groups when the resources are abundant. It is seen through many animals that survivorship is an
important aspect and which is why there is so much competition, so by elephants trying to avoid
resource competition, they are smart enough to minimize their social groups.
Vance, Archie and Moss also explain that another aspect of the social groups of elephants
is their kinship. In 2006, researchers at the Amboseli Project, found that kinship is an
evolutionary development of elephants (275). They grow up traveling in groups and not alone.
The fact that they grow up being in a family group shows how united they are. This evolutionary
development is another aspect of survivorship and demonstrates how smart they are. By traveling
in groups, elephants know that they are much safer than traveling alone. The study explains, As
a result, the costs and benefits of sociality can accumulate through both direct fitness (survival
advantage given to an individuals own offspring) and indirect fitness (advantage given to the
offspring of close genetic relatives). The research explains that by them traveling in groups
gives them survival advantage.
When conducting this research, researchers studied the family line to study the
relationships of kinships and seasonality. The image below demonstrates how researchers did a
pedigree to test if the behavior of the social groups of elephants is based on the genetic and
evolutionary developments from the relatives. The image shows how they drew out the
relationships of the female elephants to each other. They tested the experiment on female
elephants because females are the most known for kinship. Not only are they most known for
kinship, but elephants have a matriarch, which is the leader of the group. In elephants, females
are the leaders of the groups.

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In the article, The Ties that Bind, it shows that they tested in 2006 if the possibility that
one social group fuses with another is based on genetic relatedness. The article states,
Relatedness also predicted temporary fusion between social groups; core groups were more
likely to fuse with each other when the oldest females in each group were genetic relatives. One
reason that groups fuse and split is through genetic relatedness. Even though some elephants
became raised in a different group, they end up fusing with another group if they have some type
of genetic relatedness. Something else that they found when doing this research is that Groups
that shared mtDNA were also significantly more likely to fuse than groups that did not share
mtDNA. Therefore, the fission-fusion system that elephants have is mainly based on their
relatedness to each other. The graph below demonstrates the genetic relatedness of social groups.
However, these social relationships are affected by captivity.

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In the study, A Review of Injuries Caused by Elephants in Captivity, conducted by,

zoologist and researcher, Mauvis Gore goes over the factors that can be done to reduce the early
deaths of elephants and how to get them out of zoos. They gather up data of all the elephants and
show how many are recorded to have injuries. Gore studied both Asian elephants and African
elephants that were kept in zoos (52). Gore and his team collected 122 incidents of elephant
injuries due to visitors and keepers. They also gathered data that proved that elephants are
becoming violent due to captivity and attacking keepers. They explain, Attacks by elephants
might be related to whether keepers were alone or not. In 49 cases (40%) the keeper was alone
when the attack happened, compared with 41 cases (34%) when more than one keeper was
present (54). Elephants are non violent animals in the wild, but captivity causes them to attack
people. Not only can it trigger aggressiveness, but also cause dwarfism.
The study, Morphometrics and behavior of a wild Asian elephant exhibiting
disproportionate dwarfism, conducted by researcher and behavioral ecologist, Sherman de
Silva, is about dwarfism in elephants caused by being in captivity. They recorded data of
elephants that face dwarfism in captivity compared to those that face dwarfism is the wild. The
data shows that it is rare for elephants to face this problem when they are in the wild. They
explain, Mali (Figure 1d), a young female rescued from the Anuradhapura area and brought to
the Dehiwala Zoological Gardens, appears to exhibit some growth limitation (5). This
demonstrates how captivity is not beneficial to elephants. The image below demonstrates the
data collected of dwarfism on elephants in captivity versus in the wild.

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The study, Prevalence of Stereotypies and Its Possible Causes among Captive Asian
Elephants (Elephas Maximus) in Tamil Nadu, India, conducted by animal communications
expertise, Vanitha Varadharajan, goes over the impact that captivity has on elephants. It
demonstrates how the deprivation of young calves from their mothers can affect the mother's
mental state. This study gives data on the age that calves can be on their own compared to the
age that zoos separate them. It can ruin the elephant's normal social relationships that it has and
can cause great depression.

Elephant captivity has been a problem since the 1980s. According to PETA and research,
elephants live short lives while being in captivity. The food that they are fed while being in
captivity lacks nutrition. According to the study, Feeding Asian and African Elephants in
Captivity, conducted by zoologists, Marcus Clauss and Jean-Michel Hatt, goes over nutritionrelated diseases that cause low reproduction rates of elephants in captivity (88). They explain,

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Populations of elephants in captivity are at risk owing to their low reproductive success (88).
By being in captivity, elephants do not receive the proper amount of nutrients. They explain,
The staple diet of elephants in captivity will most likely consist of grass hay, which is ideal for
species adapted to eating plants high in fibre. The primary concerns are (1) the hygienic quality
of the hay and (2) potential deficiencies, particularly in protein, minerals and vitamins (91). In
the wild, elephants receive the proper amount of nutrients.
All of these critical events that have been occurring
Elephant are animals that do not deserve to be in captivity. They deserve to be free and
not be confined in a certain amount of space. Captivity is affecting their social relationships,
reproductive success, and their normal height. This is a matter that needs to be addressed because
zoos and circuses and any other facility that keeps elephants captive disguise the true harm that
they are causing to these poor species.

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Bibliography
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the Fission and Fusion of Social Groups in Wild African Elephants." Proceedings of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 273.1586 (2006): 513-22. Web.
Chiyo, Patrick I., Elizabeth A. Archie, Julie A. Hollister-Smith, Phyllis C. Lee, Joyce H. Poole,
Cynthia J. Moss, and Susan C. Alberts. "Association Patterns of African Elephants in Allmale Groups: The Role of Age and Genetic Relatedness." Animal Behaviour 81.6 (2011):
1093-099. Print.
"Get Elephants Out of Zoos." PETA. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Aug. 2016.
Gore, M., M. Hutchins, and J. Ray. "A Review of Injuries Caused by Elephants in Captivity: An
Examination of Predominant Factors." International Zoo Yearbook Int Zoo Yearbook 40.1
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Hatt, J.-M., and M. Clauss. "Feeding Asian and African Elephants Elephas Maximus and
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Silva, S. D., U. S. Weerathunga, and T. Pushpakumara. "Morphometrics of a Wild Asian
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Varadharajan, Vanitha, Thiyagesan Krishnamoorthy, and Baskaran Nagarajan. "Prevalence of
Stereotypies and Its Possible Causes among Captive Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus)
in Tamil Nadu, India." Applied Animal Behaviour Science 174 (2016): 137-46. Print.
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