captive elephants have the same behavioural needs as wild elephants – that doesn’t change when we put them in zoos. The problem is that the zoo environment prevents them from expressing some of these and that’s why they behave differently. So, they can’t walk vast distances like they do in the wild but they would if they had the opportunity. Then the elephants can start to behave abnormally because of this and do things wild elephants don’t do
We don’t quite know is the honest answer to this question. Elephants in the wild engage in very unique behaviours and we don’t know how many of these are redundant in zoos. Elephants definitely do some things in zoos that we haven’t seen them do in the wild but we are still trying to conduct lots of research to identify a. what elephants are doing in zoos, b. why they are doing what they are doing and c. what they want/need to be doing in zoos. Unfortunately it isn’t quite as clear cut as elephants do this in the wild so they must do this in zoos or they are suffering. Carrie used walking as an example but we don’t know if elephants walk so far in the wild because they WANT to or if they HAVE to (because that is where food is). If it is because they HAVE to this may not necessarily be something they NEED to do in zoos because they have food provided. We basically need to know more in able to fully answer your question. Great question though!
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Ellen commented on :
We don’t quite know is the honest answer to this question. Elephants in the wild engage in very unique behaviours and we don’t know how many of these are redundant in zoos. Elephants definitely do some things in zoos that we haven’t seen them do in the wild but we are still trying to conduct lots of research to identify a. what elephants are doing in zoos, b. why they are doing what they are doing and c. what they want/need to be doing in zoos. Unfortunately it isn’t quite as clear cut as elephants do this in the wild so they must do this in zoos or they are suffering. Carrie used walking as an example but we don’t know if elephants walk so far in the wild because they WANT to or if they HAVE to (because that is where food is). If it is because they HAVE to this may not necessarily be something they NEED to do in zoos because they have food provided. We basically need to know more in able to fully answer your question. Great question though!