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Elephants in Captivity

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The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics

Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ((PMAES))

Abstract

Elephants are among the world’s most intelligent land mammals, with a social structure so complex it rivals that of human societies. When brought into captivity, elephants are subjected to conditions that are the opposite of the dynamic ecological and social environments to which they are evolutionarily adapted, causing varying degrees of physical and psychological deterioration, suffering, and premature death. Much of the debate over the welfare of captive elephants rightfully centers on these harms. However, far less attention is given to what it means for elephants when they are unable to fully engage in the seminal activities that define them as individuals. The ethical argument against confining elephants is rooted in the inherent limitations of captivity that make it impossible for these animals to wholly realize their physical, social, and cultural worlds.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    J. H. Poole and P. Granli, “Mind and Movement: Meeting the Interests of Elephants,” in An Elephant in the Room: The Science and Well-Being of Elephants in Captivity, ed. D. L. Forthman et al. (North Grafton, MA: Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy, 2009), 3.

  2. 2.

    D. Nelson, “The Cruelest Show on Earth,” Mother Jones, November/December 2011, 56.

  3. 3.

    P. Vitello, “Pat Derby, Champion of Animal Welfare, Dies at 69,” New York Times, February 22, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/us/pat-derby-crusader-for-animals-dies-at-69.html?_r=0.

  4. 4.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 7.

  5. 5.

    J. H. Poole and C. J. Moss, “Elephant Sociality and Complexity,” in Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, ed. C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 71.

  6. 6.

    B. L. Hart, L. A. Hart, and N. Pinter-Wollman, “Large Brains and Cognition: Where Do Elephants Fit In?,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 32 (2008): 89.

  7. 7.

    P. C. Lee and C. J. Moss, “Welfare and Well-Being of Captive Elephants: Perspectives from Wild Elephant Life Histories,” in An Elephant in the Room: The Science and Well-Being of Elephants in Captivity, ed. D. L. Forthman et al. (North Grafton, MA: Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy, 2009), 24–31.

  8. 8.

    Lee and Moss, “Welfare and Well-Being,” 27.

  9. 9.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 13; Caitlin E. O’Connell-Rodwell, “Keeping an Ear to the Ground: Seismic Communication in Elephants,” Physiology 22 (2007): 287–94, doi:10.1152/physiol.00008.2007.

  10. 10.

    K. McComb et al., “Unusually Extensive Networks of Vocal Recognition in African Elephants,” Animal Behavior 59 (2000): 1103–9.

  11. 11.

    J. Arvidsson, M. Amundin, and M. Laska, “Successful Acquisition of an Olfactory Discrimination Test by Asian Elephants, Elephas maximus,” Physiology and Behavior 105 (2012): 813–14.

  12. 12.

    L. A. Bates et al., “African Elephants Have Expectations about the Locations of Out-of-Sight Family Members,” Biology Letters 4 (2008): 34–36, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0529.

  13. 13.

    J. Veasey, “Concepts in the Care and Welfare of Captive Elephants,” International Zoo Yearbook 40 (2006): 70.

  14. 14.

    J. E. Oosterhuis, Elephant Consultation Report for Edmonton Valley Zoo, Edmonton, Alberta, for Female Asian Elephant “Skanik” (aka “Lucy”) (February 4, 2013), 9, http://www.edmonton.ca/attractions_events/documents/Veterinary_update_2013.pdf.

  15. 15.

    Association of Zoos and Aquariums, “AZA Standards for Elephant Management and Care,” accessed January 12, 2014, http://www.elephanttag.org/Professional/Revised_AZA_Standards_Elephant_Management_Care_April2012.pdf.

  16. 16.

    Lee and Moss, “Welfare and Well-Being,” 32.

  17. 17.

    R. W. Byrne and L. A. Bates, “Elephant Cognition in Primate Perspective,” Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews 4 (2009): 66; Hart et al., “Large Brains,” 91.

  18. 18.

    Poole and Moss, “Elephant Sociality,” 88–89.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 89.

  20. 20.

    Hart et al., “Large Brains,” 91.

  21. 21.

    F. B. M. de Waal, “Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy,” Annual Review of Psychology 59 (2008): 283.

  22. 22.

    J. Plotnik et al., “Self-Recognition in the Asian Elephant and Future Directions for Cognitive Research with Elephants in Zoological Settings,” Zoo Biology 28 (2009): 3.

  23. 23.

    Bates et al., “Elephant Cognition,” R545.

  24. 24.

    Plotnik et al., “Self-Recognition,” 7.

  25. 25.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 11.

  26. 26.

    P. C. Lee and C. J. Moss, “Calf Development and Maternal Rearing Strategies,” in The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal, ed. C. J. Moss, H. Croze, and P. C. Lee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 235–36.

  27. 27.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,”11.

  28. 28.

    Lee and Moss, “Calf Development,” 236.

  29. 29.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 11.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    R. Slotow, D. Balfour, and O. Howison, “Killing of Black and White Rhinoceroses by African Elephants in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, South Africa,” Pachyderm 31 (2001): 14–20.

  32. 32.

    R. Clubb and G. Mason, A Review of the Welfare of Zoo Elephants in Europe (Horsham, UK: RSPCA, 2002), 169–72.

  33. 33.

    Lee and Moss, “Welfare and Well-Being,” 31.

  34. 34.

    S. Savage-Rumbaugh et al., “Welfare of Apes in Captive Environments: Comments on, and by, Specific Groups of Apes,” Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 10 (2007): 12.

  35. 35.

    R. Sukumar, The Story of Asia’s Elephants (Mumbai: Marg Foundation, 2011); Karl Gröning and Martin Saller, Elephants: A Cultural and Natural History (Cologne: Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1998).

  36. 36.

    B. Csuti, “Elephants in Captivity,” in Biology, Medicine, and Surgery of Elephants, ed. M. E. Fowler and S. K. Mikota (Ames, IA: Blackwell, 2006), 15.

  37. 37.

    K. Lindsay, “Statement to Los Angeles City Council Regarding Elephants at L.A. Zoo,” Expert Declarations, Help Billy, December 3, 2008, 3, accessed November 19, 2013, http://helpbilly.org/get_the_facts.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    L. Faust, S. D. Thompson, and J. M. Earnhardt, “Is Reversing the Decline of Asian Elephants in North American Zoos Possible? An Individual-Based Modeling Approach,” Zoo Biology 25 (2006): 201–2; L. Faust, “Technical Report on Demographic Analyses and Modeling of the North American African Elephant Population: Executive Summary” (unpublished report, Chicago: AZA Population Management Center, Lincoln Park Zoo, 2005), 1; M. Berens, “Elephants Are Dying Out in America’s Zoos,” Seattle Times, December 4, 2012, http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019809167_elephants02m.html.

  40. 40.

    R. Clubb et al., “Compromised Survivorship in Zoo Elephants,” Science 12 (2008): 1649.

  41. 41.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 5.

  42. 42.

    B. Newman, “Zoo Confinement Gives Elephants Problem Feet,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 17, 2006, http://www.post-gazette.com/nation/2006/11/17/Zoo-confinement-gives-elephants-problem-feet/stories/200611170141.

  43. 43.

    Nelson, “Cruelest Show,” 55.

  44. 44.

    A. Kuntze, “Work-Related Illness: Hernia Perinealis, Bursitis Praepatellaris and Tyloma Olecrani in Female Circus Elephants (Elephas maximus),” Erkrankungen der Zootiere 31 (1989): 185–87.

  45. 45.

    Clubb and Mason, Review of the Welfare of Zoo Elephants, 224–30; G. J. Mason and J. S. Veasey, “What Do Population-Level Welfare Indices Suggest about the Well-Being of Zoo Elephants?,” Zoo Biology 29 (2008): 10–11.

  46. 46.

    R. Murphree et al., “Elephant-to-Human Transmission of Tuberculosis, 2009,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 17 (2011): 366, doi:10.3201/eid1703101668.

  47. 47.

    A. Zachariah et al., “Fatal Herpes Hemmorhagic Disease in Wild and Orphan Asian Elephants in Southern India,” Journal of Wildlife Diseases 49 (2013): 381.

  48. 48.

    Nelson, “Cruelest Show,” 50.

  49. 49.

    J. Poole, “Opinions regarding the Use of Bullhooks on Elephants, Testimony to Massachusetts Legislators,” January 2007, http://www.elephantvoices.org/multimedia-resources/statements-a-testimonies.

  50. 50.

    D. Jamieson, “Zoos Revisited,” in Ethics on the Ark, ed. B. G. Norton et al. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), 55–56.

  51. 51.

    D. Beers, For the Prevention of Cruelty: The History and Legacy of Animal Rights Activism in the United States (Athens: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2006), 79–81.

  52. 52.

    M. Hutchins, B. Smith, and M. Keele, “Zoos as Responsible Stewards of Elephants,” in Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, ed. C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 285–86; D. Schmitt, “View from the Big Top: Why Elephants Belong in North American Circuses,” in Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, ed. C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 227.

  53. 53.

    G. E. Varner and M. C. Monroe, “Ethical Perspectives on Captive Breeding: Is It for the Birds?,” Endangered Species UPDATE 8, no. 1 (1990): 27–29.

  54. 54.

    In Defense of Animals, “2010–11 Top Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants,” press release, January 18, 2011, accessed November 19, 2013, http://www.helpelephants.com/top_ten_worst_zoos_2010.html.

  55. 55.

    J. Donahue and E. Trump, The Politics of Zoos: Exotic Animals and Their Protectors (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006), 174.

  56. 56.

    Tucson News Now, “Reid Park Zoo Elephants Are Leaving Town Today,” February 29, 2012, http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/17045569/reid-park-zoo-elephants-are-leaving-town-wednesday.

  57. 57.

    Schmitt, “View from the Big Top,” 231.

  58. 58.

    S. Hedges et al., “Why Inter-Country Loans Will Not Help Sumatra’s Elephants,” Zoo Biology 25 (2006): 242.

  59. 59.

    Hutchins et al., “Zoos as Responsible Stewards,” 287.

  60. 60.

    N. F. R. Snyder et al., “Limitations of Captive Breeding in Endangered Species Recovery,” Conservation Biology 10, no. 2 (1996): 339.

  61. 61.

    D. A. Conde et al., “Zoos through the Lens of the IUCN Red List: A Global Metapopulation Approach to Support Conservation Breeding Programs,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 12 (2013): 1, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080311.

  62. 62.

    Poole and Granli, “Mind and Movement,” 15.

  63. 63.

    N. Thongtip et al., “Successful Artificial Insemination in the Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Using Chilled and Frozen-Thawed Semen,” Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology 7 (2009): 75, doi:10.1186/1477-7827-7-75.

  64. 64.

    Berens, “Elephants Are Dying Out in America’s Zoos.”

  65. 65.

    Association of Zoos and Aquariums, “2012 International Elephant Foundation Grants Backed by Zoo Donations,” press release, January 9, 2012, http://www.aza.org/PressRoom/detail.aspx?id=23204.

  66. 66.

    D. Hancocks, A Different Nature: The Paradoxical World of Zoos and Their Uncertain Future (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 83, citing research by Stephen R. Kellert and Julie Dunlap, “Informal Learning at the Zoo: A Study of Attitude and Knowledge Impacts,” A Report to the Zoological Society of Philadelphia of a Study Funded by the G. R. Dodge Foundation, Philadelphia.

  67. 67.

    J. H. Falk et al., Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter: Assessing the Impact of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium (Silver Spring, MD: Association of Zoos and Aquariums, 2007).

  68. 68.

    L. Marino et al., “Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium Study,” Society and Animals 18 (2010): 126–38.

  69. 69.

    J. D. Altman, “Animal Activity and Visitor Learning at the Zoo,” Anthrozoos 11, no. 1 (1998): 12.

  70. 70.

    D. Jensen and K. Tweedy-Holmes, Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos (Santa Cruz, CA: No Voice Unheard, 2007), 86.

  71. 71.

    Hutchins et al., “Zoos as Responsible Stewards,” 88–89; Schmitt, “View from the Big Top,” 231–33.

  72. 72.

    Clubb and Mason, A Review of the Welfare of Zoo Elephants, 26.

  73. 73.

    A. Choudhury et al. (IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group), “Elephas maximus,” 2008, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, version 2014.1, http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/7140/0.

  74. 74.

    J. J. Blanc, “Loxodonta africana,” 2008, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Version 2014.1, http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12392/0.

  75. 75.

    J. Ingham, “Elephants ‘Extinct within 12 Years,’” Express, August 12, 2013, http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/421411/Elephants-extinct-within-12-years.

  76. 76.

    R. Greene, “Mammoth Proposal: An Elephant Reserve in Tehama County,” Red Bluff Daily News, December 6, 2013, http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/business/ci_24669207/mammoth-proposal-an-elephant-reserve-tehama-county.

  77. 77.

    G. J. Mason and J. S. Veasey, “How Should the Psychological Well-Being of Zoo Elephants Be Objectively Investigated?,” Zoo Biology 29 (2010): 238.

  78. 78.

    Independent (London), “Peter Singer: You Ask the Questions,” Independent, September 11, 2006, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/peter-singer-you-ask-the-questions-415524.html.

  79. 79.

    Jamieson, “Zoos Revisited,” 60.

  80. 80.

    T. Regan, “Are Zoos Morally Defensible?,” in Ethics on the Ark, ed. B. G. Norton et al. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995), 44.

  81. 81.

    L. Alward, “Why Circuses Are Unsuited to Elephants,” in Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, ed. C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 216.

  82. 82.

    Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Live Hard, Die Young: How Elephant Suffer in Zoos (Southwater, UK: RSPCA, 2002), 10, http://www.idausa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Satellite-1.pdf.

  83. 83.

    C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen, Introduction, in Elephants and Ethics: Toward a Morality of Coexistence, ed. C. Wemmer and C. A. Christen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 11.

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Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to David Hancocks for lending his keen insights, fine editing skills, and knowledge of elephants in captivity. I also thank Jackie Gai, DVM, for her assistance and encouragement in divining the truth and Marshall Carter-Tripp for her helpful comments on this manuscript.

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  1. Performing Animal Welfare Society, San Andreas, CA, USA

    Catherine Doyle

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  1. Catherine Doyle
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  1. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK

    Andrew Linzey

  2. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK

    Clair Linzey

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Doyle, C. (2018). Elephants in Captivity. In: Linzey, A., Linzey, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-36671-9_12

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