In a recently concluded study, researchers reveal elephants in captivity, do not live as long as elephants in the wild. As compared to female elephants living natural lives in Amboseli National Park in Kenya who lived for an average of 56-years, the average African female elephant lived for just under 17-years in a zoo.  But, if we account for poaching, then it is safe to say, the median age for elephants in the wild falls to 35.9-years.  As for Asian elephants in European zoos, their median age was 18.9 years compared with 41.7-years of those elephants working in Myanmar’s timber industry.

 According to Ros Clubb and colleagues, who belong to Britain’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, stress and obesity in captive animals, seem to be the most likely killers.  Publishing their study in the Science Journal, they write: ‘In zoos, the welfare of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) has long caused concern.  Infanticide, Herpes, tuberculosis, lameness, infertility, and stereotypic behavior are prevalent, and zoo elephant populations are not self-sustaining without importation.’

 Studying more than 4,500 individual elephants, including half of the global zoo population, the international team of researchers writes: ‘Neither infant nor juvenile mortality differed between populations, but adult females died earlier in zoos than in Amboseli.’

 The study has helped raise the question of whether elephants in Kansas City Zoo, would live longer in the wild.  Stirring up a debate, if elephants in European zoos die younger in captivity than in their native environments according to the study, then we need to thrash out the issue, whether it is ethically correct to keep them in zoos.

Questioning the study’s methodology, Randy Wisthoff, Director of Kansas City Zoo says its’ seven elephants are doing well, ranging from 23-years to the ripe old age of 47.  With the country’s largest elephant exhibits, Kansas City zoo has 4½-acres of grass for the elephants to walk on in summertime, while heated barn floors, comfort and keep their feet warm in winter time.

According to Wisthoff , Kansas City zoo animals receive the best of care there is no reason to believe that their very healthy group of girls, by no means young animals, should not live a number of more years.  In fact, once Kansas City boasted of the oldest bull African elephant in North America , who died in 2003 at the ripe old age of 52, succumbing to infection and arthritis, though only after a long and hard fought battle.

However, with every zoo with elephants, already feeling the heat from animal rights groups, no doubt the new study will only serve to add more fuel to their argument.  Complaints about holding elephants in captivity include concerns about cramped space, forced standing on hard surfaces and isolation for the highly social animals.  And only last week, Los Angeles City Council albeit temporarily halted a proposed $42-million elephant exhibit at that city’s zoo, following weeks of pressure from those who believe in leaving animals in their natural habitat.

Paul Boyle, senior vice president for conservation and education at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in this country, dismisses the study as ‘terribly flawed’, saying it had no relevance to zoos in North America .  Further, the organization defends keeping elephants in zoos, where it feels they are safer than in the wild, where their numbers are fast diminishing due to poaching and loss of habitat.

In its’ defence, the organization does keep a list of the ‘10 worst zoos for elephants’, which does not include the Kansas City Zoo, though St. Louis Zoo does feature on its list.  That as may be, yet, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States are very critical on the issue of keeping elephants in captivity.