Elephant Protection

Animal Welfare

Elephant Welfare and Your Travels

Animal welfare encompasses the physical and mental well-being of animals, just as it does for humans. To establish a framework for assessing animal welfare, scientists have identified five essential freedoms.

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst: Animals should have unhindered access to fresh water and a diet that sustains their health and vitality.

2. Freedom from discomfort: Animals deserve an environment that provides adequate shelter and comfortable resting areas, ensuring their physical and psychological ease.

3. Freedom from pain, injury, or disease: Animals should receive appropriate nutrition, preventive measures against illnesses, and prompt diagnosis and treatment when needed.

4. Freedom to express normal behavior: Animals should be afforded enough space, natural stimuli to engage their senses, and the company of their own kind to exhibit their inherent behaviors.

5. Freedom from fear and distress: Animals’ well-being necessitates conditions and treatment that shield them from mental suffering.

Ensuring that animals enjoy these five freedoms indicates a state of good welfare.

Elephants are remarkable creatures, known for their immense size and unique characteristics. They have a voracious appetite, consuming approximately 200kg of fresh food daily. Surprisingly, they have a diverse palate, selecting from a staggering array of about 180 plant species. In their natural habitat, elephants spend around 18 hours a day on the move, foraging for sustenance.

In the wild, these magnificent beings can live up to 60-70 years. However, their lifespan is often shorter in captivity. Elephants are highly social animals, forming herds consisting of 8-20 individuals. These herds are led by a dominant female known as the matriarch, whose authority is unquestioned. Male elephants, upon reaching maturity, separate from the group and form bonds with other males until they encounter females.

Beyond their size and social structure, elephants exhibit extraordinary intelligence and sociability. They form intricate social groups and possess self-awareness, as demonstrated by their ability to recognize themselves in mirrors. Additionally, elephants display empathy and cooperation, exemplified by instances where they safeguard younger members by standing watch on busy roads. Communication is vital to their social dynamics, with approximately 80% of their interactions occurring through infrasound, which lies beyond our hearing range. Notably, elephants possess an impressive capability to traverse extensive distances of 30-50km in a single day.

What happens in captivity?

If we compare the above understanding with what is happening in captivity and at many elephant camps, their conditions are highly compromised. Some common observations:

  • Chaining of elephants so they have very limited movement – particularly of the bulls (males)
  • Limited diet – for example, just one or two plants such as pineapple leaves
  • Isolation from others – limited opportunity for touching or other normal social interaction
  • Little or no veterinary care
  • Unsuitable, unyielding ground such as concrete, which is harmful to their feet
  • Bright sunlight where it may be up to 40 degrees with limited shade

Activities

  • Rides – saddles may be left on all day and insufficient cushioning may cause discomfort
  • Use of hooks, sticks and other tools to control the elephant – causing pain if used inappropriately
  • Elephant painting may seem peaceful, but in reality the training of an elephant to be compliant to the mahout’s movements of their ear and directing the movement of their trunk, would only be achieved through threat of pain
  • Elephant football entails training the elephant to respond to a command (again through threat of pain) to make very unnatural and physically stressful movements. The sudden and unnatural movement of a 1500kg elephant makes them very vulnerable to injury
  • Other extreme activities such as tight rope walking (highly risky – a 1m drop would be fatal), riding a tricycle and playing basketball all entail cruel training techniques

In the above circumstances, it is clear that the 5 Freedoms are not being granted. Amongst animal welfare professionals, it is widely understood that elephants cannot be kept adequately in captivity. They are large, they are demanding and they are not domesticated animals.

What about domestication?

Elephants are NOT domesticated. Cow, horses, dogs etc. have been domesticated – a process which is done through selective, human-guided breeding over at least 10 generations of an animal. You cannot domesticate an individual animal during its lifespan. Even though elephants have been kept by humans for around 3,000 years, they have been, on the whole, poached directly from the wild, with perhaps one generation (or rarely two) being bred in captivity. Domestication is a breeding process where you select the characteristics you want and breed the animals with those characteristics over many generations. This has never been done with elephants.

Because all captive elephants are not domesticated animals, for them to be kept in captivity:

  • they need to be restrained
  • they are vulnerable to sudden outbursts of human targeted aggression, leading to injuries and fatalities
  • they undergo a cruel and painful process to break the elephants will and accept human control
  • they are susceptible to the development of health and behavioural problems

Breeding in captivity

Most elephants seen at camps are first generation from the wild. Even when bred in captivity, elephants need to be ‘broken’ to accept human control. Breeding in captivity is often promoted as a conservation activity that helps prevent poaching, but this may not necessarily be the case if done for commercial purposes. Elephants don’t breed in captivity easily and they have a very long gestation period (22 months), so the number that can be bred in captivity is very low. This means there will continue to be a demand for elephants to be taken from the wild while there is an interest from tourism. The breeding of a few in captivity, combined with animals poached from the wild, helps to cover up the illegal trafficking of elephants (as with other endangered species.) A captive bred animal is highly unlikely to be introduced into the wild successfully and without habitat protection and scientific management of the breeding process, the captive bred animal may be inbred and of lower genetic quality.

What can you do to help elephants?

  • Share your new understanding of appropriate elephant welfare – you are welcome to share this document.
  • Keep in mind a few simple key points to look out for when visiting a venue with wild animals:

Freedom to move without restraint. Are the animals free to move without restraint when not used for tourists? Can they interact with other animals on their own terms?

No signs of abuse or distress in the animals. Are the animals healthy and without wounds and not showing any behavioural problems? Do the animals seem calm but not apathetic?

Clean and natural husbandry conditions. Are the animals housed in a natural environment? Is the area kept clean?

Fresh and varied food available. Is fresh, unprocessed food available at all times? Can the animals forage natural food? Most animals also require free access to water at all times

  • Don’t ride elephants or patronise shows where the elephants are clearly made to perform unnatural or human-like activities. You can politely voice your concerns to the appropriate tourism authorities.
  • If wanting to help elephants or experience them at close range, please support a ‘commendable venue’ or at least a venue that clearly prioritises the elephant’s welfare. Intrepid can help with suggestions. The existing captive elephant’s situation will require improvement and by bringing support to better welfare providing venues, this will pressure other venues to improve while overall aiming to prevent new elephants from ending up in the trade.

In summary

  • The keeping of elephants adequately in captivity is just not possible because they are not domesticated and they are big, demanding animals
  • The initial training of elephants for entertainment of tourists is extremely cruel Many of the activities they are made to do are physically and psychologically damaging and stressful Captive breeding must be seen with scepticism and as potentially counterproductive for conservation purposes, as well as totally disregarding the basic principles of animal welfare
  • The existing captive elephant populations need action to improve their welfare