• Question: Are elephants more likely to have better relationships in the wild, where they're more dependent on each other? Also how much is there we still don't know about them?

    Asked by brythepolarbear to Ellen on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 8 Mar 2017:


      A great question – thanks for asking 🙂

      The truthful answer is i really don’t know. We know that in the wild female elephants have extremely strong relationships with each other. They tend to live in related groups of mothers, offspring and other female relatives. And you are absolutely spot on, they are dependent on each other and their social bonds basically to survive. But there is really limited information about how they interact in captivity. I hope to be able to have a proper answer to your question by the time I have finished my work though!

      We know lots about African elephants in the wild thanks to a huge study on elephants in Amboseli that has been going on for over 40 years with Phyllis Lee, Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole. We know a little less about Asian elephants but there is another amazing scientist, Shermin De Silva who is trying to find out more. We know hardly anything about social behaviour of zoo elephants in the grand scheme of things but I am hoping my work will go some way towards addressing that.

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