Inside Zoos

Captivity-induced health problems
Zoo officials work hard to convince the public that the elephants in their care are happy and healthy. On the contrary, most zoo visitors would be shocked to learn that many of the elephants on display survive on a daily diet of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications to mask captivity-related ailments-the direct result of inactivity from confinement in artificial and restrictive zoo enclosures.

Restricted Movement Results In Health Problems and Premature Death
Zoos cannot provide the vast acreage necessary to accommodate elephants' need to walk. As the world's largest land mammal, elephants are designed for almost constant movement, and wild elephant herds easily travel over thirty miles a day on soft soil and varied terrains. Elephants in zoos, by contrast, spend their entire lives inactive in tiny enclosures, standing on concrete or hard compacted dirt. As a result, they suffer extremely painful arthritic and degenerative joint disorders and recurrent foot infections, as well as digestive problems. With all the stress and illness elephants suffer in zoos, it is no surprise that they live only about half as long as wild elephants. Elephants in the wild can live to be seventy years or older. According to the AZA, elephants in U.S. zoos die on average at thirty-four years old.

Psychological Deterioration
Neurotic behaviors are common consequences of severe confinement. Neurotic reactions can take the form of rocking or swaying, head nodding, and other repetitive motions. Sadly, many zoos still use force and dominance to manage elephants. Historically elephants have been managed through coercive force, such as chaining for prolonged periods and use of "bullhooks" and electrical hotshots. Chaining has a direct correlation to neurotic behavior in elephants.

The bullhook, also called an ankus, is a tool used to punish and control elephants. The handle is made of wood, metal, plastic, or fiberglass, and there is a sharp steel hook at one end. Both ends inflict damage. The trainer uses the hook to apply varying degrees of pressure to sensitive spots on the elephant's body, causing the elephant to move away from the source of discomfort. The thickness of an elephant's skin ranges from one inch across the back and hindquarters to paper-thin around the mouth and eyes, inside the ears, and at the anus. Their skin appears deceptively tough, but in reality it is so delicate that an elephant can feel the pain of an insect bite. A bullhook can easily inflict pain and injury on an elephant's sensitive skin. Trainers often embed the hook in the soft tissue behind the ears, inside the ear or mouth, in and around the anus, and in tender spots under the chin and around the feet.

Infant Mortality
Programs to breed elephants in captivity have largely failed, with high infant mortality rates and the premature shut down of most female elephants' reproductive systems. Without the complex social network that sustains elephants in the wild, new elephant mothers in captivity are ill-equipped to nurture infants causing many of them to die. Inexperienced mothers would normally learn from other females in the family herd, who help ensure the infant's survival. Zoos cannot begin to accommodate these vital social structures.

Incompatible Climates
Zoos in cold climates pose additional health threats to elephants, who originate from the warm, temperate regions of Africa and Asia. Cold winters force elephants indoors for months at a time, into cramped enclosures that are even smaller than their inadequate outdoor areas. Forced indoors, elephants stand on concrete surfaces in their own urine and feces, which can lead to foot infection.

Broken families
Zoos simply are not suited to meeting elephants' social needs. In the wild, elephants live in complex societies made up of extended family members led by a mature matriarch. Female elephants stay with the herd their entire lives, and males do not leave the family until around fourteen years of age, always maintaining rich relationships with other bulls and females. In stark contrast, some elephants in zoos actually live in solitary confinement. Those elephants lucky enough to bond with another elephant in a zoo suffer when that friendship is disregarded by common zoo animal-swapping programs. Zoos shuffle elephants around like pieces of furniture with little to no regard for their feelings.

Devastation, Not Conservation
Zoos falsely claim that exhibiting elephants is part of a conservation effort to ensure the species' survival. In fact zoos actually contribute to the problem elephants face by abducting young elephants from their families in the wild to be put on display. True conservation involves protection of the natural habitat of elephants in Africa and Asia and strict anti-poaching efforts.