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Zoo Life Erodes Elephant Health, Study Finds
University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada)
Dec. 11, 2008

Female elephants living in protected populations in Africa and Asia live longer than those in captivity in European zoos, according to new research by an international team of scientists that includes a University of Guelph professor.

The study led by Guelph Prof. Georgia Mason was published in the Dec. 12 issue of Science, the world's leading journal of scientific research. Mason conducted the research with Ros Clubb, her former graduate student, and four other researchers from the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Following the paper's publication, news stories about Mason's research appeared in more than 300 newspapers, magazines and broadcast news reports around the world, including the New York Times, Time magazine, the Globe and Mail, National Geographic, New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, CBC radio, ABC News, Discover magazine, Nature magazine, the Guardian, the Independent, the Telegraph, and Scientific American.

The findings could mark the end of a long-standing debate about the physical and mental well being of zoo elephants, and may also bring about improvements in how these animals are kept.

"This is the first animal welfare paper to get into Science," said Mason, who holds the Canada Research Chair in animal welfare in Guelph's Department of Animal and Poultry Science. She is also an associated faculty member in U of G's Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare.

"These kinds of questions often generate more heat than light, and our research shows what can be found out by analysing objective data. We hope it provides a model for tackling similar issues with other species," she said (Watch the Science Podcast featuring Prof. Mason).

Using data on more than 4,500 elephants, the researchers found empirical evidence that zoos cause shortened adult life spans in both African and Asian elephants. In the most endangered species of elephant, the Asian, calf death rates were also elevated.

For this species, the researchers found that being born into a zoo(rather than being imported from the wild), being moved between zoos, and the possible loss of their mothers, all put animals at particular risk.

The authors looked at data on female Asian and African elephants from Amboseli National Park in Kenya as well as the Myanma Timber Enterprise and compared them to data on elephants in European zoos to reach these conclusions. Combined with the widespread health and reproductive problems documented in zoo elephants, these findings suggest that they suffer from both mental and physical ailments.

The authors recommend screening all zoo elephants for signs of stress and obesity, in order to identify individuals that might be in trouble. Until these animals’ problems can be solved, the researchers also call for an end to the importation of elephants from their native countries, the minimizing of inter-zoo transfers, and suggest that breeding elephants should be restricted to those zoos that exhibit no harmful effects in their captive-born animals.

Mason joined U of G in 2004. She had spent the past two decades studying, teaching and advising on animal welfare issues in England — including 10 years as a lecturer and scientist at Oxford.

She also done extensive research on the welfare of elephants and carnivores in zoos and mink on fur farms, focussing on how different species vary in their response to captive husbandry. Her work has also appeared in publications such as Nature and New Scientist.

Guelph's Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare was the first of its kind in North America and second in the world. It includes undergraduate and graduate teaching programs and research projects, as well as public lectures, seminars, and educational opportunities for people with a variety of interests in animal welfare.

Do Zoos Shorten Elephant Life Spans?
ScienceNOW Daily News
Dec. 11, 2008

Elephants are one of the top draws for zoos, which are the only places most of us get a chance to see the behemoths. But a new and controversial study in tomorrow's issue of Science suggests that captivity is so bad for female elephants' health and overall well-being that their life spans are less than that of half of those of protected populations in Africa and Asia. The data also indicate that captive-born Asian elephant calves are particularly likely to die young. The team has called for an end to zoos' acquisition of wild elephants and for limits on transfers of animals among zoos.

Already concerned about their elephants, many zoos in the United States and Europe are expanding or building new enclosures, or even deciding against exhibiting the great beasts altogether. Studies in the wild have documented the importance of roaming and family ties for these animals, which zoos with limited space often cannot provide. A sign that the animals aren't thriving is that "zoos are not able to maintain their elephant populations without importing new, wild-caught animals," says Ros Clubb, a wildlife biologist at England's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in London. Clubb and co-author Georgia Mason, a behavioral biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada, published a pilot, non-peer-reviewed study on this issue 6 years ago. It was fiercely and "rightly" criticized, they say, for its small data set and poor statistics--problems they say they have corrected with the new report.

For the new study, the researchers drew on data from European "elephant studbooks" and the European Elephant Group, which track the animals' life histories and transfers in captivity. Clubb and colleagues compared the median life spans of 800 elephants in European zoos with those of wild elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park and tamed elephants in Burma's Myanma Tiber Enterprise (MTE), a logging business. "We chose populations that are highly protected, as are zoo elephants," says Clubb. The team's analysis revealed that African zoo elephants had life spans of about 17 years, whereas those in Amboseli lived 56 years. The median life span for Asian zoo elephants was nearly 19 years, but at MTE it was almost 42 years. Death rates for infant Asian elephants were especially high in zoos.

Some of the zoo elephants' problems stem from the practices of removing young calves from their mothers and transferring females from one zoo to another, usually for breeding. Both practices break the animals' family ties and presumably cause mental stress. "In the wild, females always stay with their mothers; they never leave the herd where they're born," says Mason. Zoo elephants are often overweight as well, due to a lack of space in which to roam.

Some zoo directors, including Miranda Stevenson, director of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums in London, applaud the study. The study is an additional prod, she says, to continue the efforts to improve the quality of life for zoo elephants. "It's a very sobering study," agrees Ron Kagan, director of Michigan's Detroit Zoological Society, who oversaw the transfer of his zoo's two elephants to a California sanctuary 5 years ago because of concerns about their well-being.

But others, including elephant conservationist Iain Douglas-Hamilton of the environmental group Save the Elephants in Kenya, worry that the paper presents an unrealistic image of elephants in the wild. "In most wild populations, human predation is the predominant form of mortality," he notes. Further, zoos "play a significant role in conservation by stimulating the interest of children and adults." Stevenson adds that the changes under way at zoos in the United Kingdom have already led to improvements, noting that "all five calves born in the last 5 years" are healthy. "I'd like to see a similar analysis 5 years from now, since we are all working to improve conditions for our elephants."