Chapter 8 Tradition, Biology and Morality in Captive Elephant Management Peter C. Stroud Zoological Consultant

“Elephants are wild creatures and, not having been selectively bred by man for generations, they cannot be expected to alter their habits in every particular at a moment’s notice to suit man’s requirements, so that, if an officer finds that he cannot, for any reason, accommodate himself to the habits of the elephant, he should dispense with this form of transport. There does not appear to be any other alternative.” A.J.W. Milroy At the beginning of the 21st century, elephants are still treated by many Western zoos as if they are domesticated animals, modified in behavior by human agency to suit human purposes. In taking such an approach, zoos actually depart from more progressive trends in wild animal husbandry. Elephants represent an anomaly. Zoos observe and explain elephant behavior within the narrow boundaries of their experience. The ability of elephants to submit to human control and to live in artificial conditions is used, a priori, to justify such conditions. This presents those arguing for a broader approach to defining elephant welfare with a dilemma. It is often argued that the artificial conditions of zoos are actually injurious to elephant health and well-being. Statistics can be performed to show that elephants in zoos live relatively short lives plagued by mental and physical ill health (Clubb & Mason 2002). Equally, zoos counter these arguments with claims of improving trends in lifespan and reproduction (Lees 2004; Weise & Willis 2004) and an ongoing emphasis on “behavioral enrichment” to improve mental health (Standley & Embury 2004; Stevenson & Walter 2006). Such a clash of arguments can further obscure rather than clarify sensible conclusions about the conditions elephants really need if they are to be maintained in captivity. Further complicating the picture, the goal of zoos to manage self-sustaining populations of elephants raises moral and ethical questions about the welfare of individual elephants versus the genetic and demographic health of populations. The elephant anomaly The husbandry of wild animals in Western zoos is a culturally embedded activity. The human view of animals in the zoo is tied to time and place and prevailing culture. From the mid-20th century, Dr. Heini Hediger became the zoo world’s clearest exponent of principles for how the care of wild animals in captivity should be approached. “The standard by which a zoo animal is judged should be the life it leads in the wild under so-called free conditions of nature” (Hediger 1969, p. 1, emphasis added). He went on to say, “In the zoo…we must take care to counteract all… domestication phenomena; the wild animals loaned to us from nature must be 99

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kept in the most pure and original condition” (Hediger 1969, p. 63, emphasis added). In the 1980s, these ideas were echoed by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) in its Zoological Park and Aquarium Fundamentals (Sausman, Ed. 1982). In a chapter on the husbandry of mammals, Lawrence Curtis wrote (1982, p. 246), “The zoo biologist must develop a solid understanding of individual species biology and ethology in the wild, supplemented by data gleaned from captive experience.” Following such principles, in the absence of hard scientific facts about captive needs, zoos should be expected to draw reasonable inferences from what is known about wild animals, and then to test these inferences against the results of research. This is how progressive zoos approach the husbandry of the species in their care. Initial estimations of how animals’ intrinsic needs can be met are adjusted both on the basis of results (experience) and, crucially, on the basis of emerging knowledge of the biology of the species in the wild. Why then are elephants treated differently? To illustrate how elephants have been managed in Western zoos we need only look to the size of the social groupings in which they are maintained. Elephants are highly social mammals that spend their entire lives enmeshed in a complex web of relationships with dozens of other individuals (Sukumar 2003). These relationships are not confined to immediate family members. Considering the subset of European and North American zoos that have registered their collections with the International Species Information System (ISIS), freely available data indicate that 93 institutions keep cow Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). Of these, some 65 institutions keep fewer than four cows and a startling 51 institutions maintain fewer than three cows (ISIS 2006). The question must be asked, why does this patently unnatural situation pertain? In answering this question, qualifications are used frequently in some of the arguments offered from the contemporary zoo world. One line of reasoning holds that we can define elephant needs in captivity according to choices that the elephants themselves make and the individual behavioral traits that they exhibit towards other elephants, their human caregivers and their environment. This argument is hollow because elephants in captivity have all been shaped by their captive experiences from infancy and cannot indicate their natural preferences to us. Another line of argument involves a revisionist approach to the relevance of biology in determining the needs of wild animals in captivity. Hutchins (2006, p. 161-171) has argued that, “making direct comparisons between wild and zoo animals may be a slippery slope, at least from a scientific perspective.” He goes on to argue that variation in nature means that there is, “no one nature for a particular species, no simplified categorization of the natural world that we can use as a model for either developing or evaluating the quality of zoo animal management programs.” This, curiously, seems to argue that key characteristics cannot be ascribed to individual species. The inherent flexibility of species suggests to Hutchins that welfare for elephants can be defined only within a range of conditions that the species is “able to tolerate.” There are many problems with Hutchins’ approach, perhaps best exemplified by the way he describes “optimum group size” in elephants. Here he fails to recognize that while the size of a group overall is flexible, such groups are always a reflection of a web of complex social relationships that exist through extended periods of time and space (Sukumar 2003). The real reasons for the anomalous treatment of elephants are to be found in aspects of their biology. Field science now makes clear that elephants are unique amongst non-primate land mammals in the extent and scope of their learned behavior, their intelligence, the strength of their social bonds, the complexity of their communications, their tolerance of one another and their relative passivity as herbivores (Sukumar 2003). These very characteristics, however, leave elephants open to intense manipulation by human beings. 100

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Tradition and welfare Elephants have lent themselves to use by humans as beasts of burden, sacred beings, war machines, pets and status symbols. The Western zoo tradition itself appears to be narrowly derivative of the far older elephant-keeping cultures that in Asia date back at least 4,000 years. But this long tradition of elephant use has at its heart an economic equation. Elephants serve human ends and human needs. It is likely that humans would have farmed elephants were it not for the fact that because they take so long to mature and were so readily captured from wild stocks it was never economical to do so (Diamond 1998, p. 169). The most ancient traditional view is essentially utilitarian, even where it is embedded in notions of the sacred. The welfare of the elephant is framed by a need to support its continued use by humans. While we might expect that the long history of elephants-in-human-use has honed the treatment of elephants to ensure their health and survival, if this has been the case, it has been for human purposes. Where these purposes are no longer valid it should not surprise us that those standards of elephant care and welfare have eroded. There is clear evidence of this in Southeast Asia in the present day, where many elephants are underemployed or overworked (Lair 1997). It is arguable that tradition, even in Asia, has neither fulfilled intrinsic elephant welfare needs, nor has it ever set out to do so in any encompassing sense. It is equally arguable that in the past, during periods of stability in so-called traditional societies, elephant care, if considered holistically, was probably better than it is today in countries where elephants are still a part of economic life. Borrowing from and adapting ancient traditions, zoos from their beginnings in the 19th century have kept and displayed elephants of both Asian and African species, essentially as if they were work animals. Methods of containment and control have involved not only the physical apparatus of the zoo exhibit, but specific training of elephant and keeper to enable command and control of the animal both within and outside the confines of the elephant facilities. This training has been based on practices taken directly from Asian traditions; indeed, elephant trainers from Asia have in some instances found employment training elephants in zoos. It is quickly apparent that this zoo tradition brings with it fundamental issues: if the methods employed to manage elephants are based upon the requirement for the animal to perform work, how much work is there to occupy elephants in zoos and what does this mean for the construction of a definition of elephant welfare? What is the nature of this work and can it provide a zoo elephant with the sort of mental and physical health and development that substitute for a traditional life of work in Asia or for life in the wild? Answering these questions exposes the paradox at the heart of the traditional approach to the management of zoo elephants. Because elephant cultures have relied upon the capture of wild elephants to maintain captive stocks, there has been little requirement to foster breeding and maternal care of offspring. Asian elephants in their range countries today do not experience a social life in any way analogous to that experienced by their wild counterparts (Lair 1997). The same is true of elephants in Western zoos. Furthermore, it is likely that in practically all zoos where they are kept, elephants are more constrained and less occupied than traditionally managed captive elephants in Asia. Even considered by the traditional standards implicit in the urban zoo management of elephants, zoo elephants are underemployed. A further question we must ask, therefore, is, “If for some thousands of years elephants have survived in captivity without access to natural social conditions and essentially under the control of human caregivers, should we conclude that an acceptable definition of what constitutes elephant welfare must recognize the inherent adaptability of elephants?” More particularly, we should ask, “Is it appropriate for zoos to construct a definition of zoo elephant welfare on this basis?” 101

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As we have noted, removal of an elephant from its mother at a young age means that many of its responses will be conditioned by the treatment it receives in the zoo. These responses, and indeed mere survival and physical health, cannot alone reflect elephant needs. We may reasonably contend, therefore, that the answer to both questions is “No.” Such a construction essentially accepts prevailing conditions of limited space in urban environments and interventionist regimes of care to prompt elephants to gain some measure of physical and mental exercise. It fails to account in any systematic way for elephant biology and ignores an ethical consideration of how the individual elephant understands a world far removed from that in which elephants have evolved to function. It denies in very large measure any independent agency to the elephant to such an extent that even the social functioning of the individual, in any naturalistic way, is prevented, corrupted or both. Even from a narrow utilitarian standpoint we can conclude that as no humans depend on zoo elephants for their well-being, there can be no justification for approaching zoo elephants, tacitly or explicitly, as work animals. The history of elephants in zoos shows that tradition is an unreliable guide to captive elephant welfare. Whatever current trends may be, even real improvements in zoo elephant health, reproduction and longevity leave us with an anomalous situation. We may ask, “What other social mammals have their natural social order so disregarded?” Guidelines that recommend minimum group sizes of three or four females (AZA 2003; Standley & Embury 2004) do not begin to address the issue of natural social groupings for elephants in captivity. Neither does a genetic and demographic model that depends on artificial reproduction where elephants do not breed but are trained to be bred. Both of these approaches are designed entirely to serve the institutional philosophy and physical constraints imposed by most zoos. Here again it is the elephant that must adapt. At play is the old paradigm of the elephant in human use. Measurement of elephant welfare must include more than lifespan and reproduction. It must include an assessment of elephant-to-elephant social well-being in the context of family life over generations. What is really required is that independence, motivation and challenge are restored to captive elephants. Occupational therapy There is a growing emphasis in zoos on increasing the time that elephants and other animals spend in occupation in order to improve their mental and physical health. In the case of elephants specifically, this “enrichment” often involves giving them small problems to solve or simple physical exercises to perform in order to obtain rewards of food. We may contemplate the extent to which “enrichment” activities constitute just another form of “work.” Such activities do seem to reduce the observed levels of stereotypic behavior, at least in the time during which the activities are offered (Clubb & Mason 2002, p. 229-230). “However the relationship between stereotypy and individual welfare is complex” (Clubb & Mason 2002, p. 223), and those enrichment activities that are really beneficial to captive elephants are yet to be distinguished from those that may merely obscure the problems that elephants face in highly confined zoo environments. The incidence of stereotypic (aberrant) behaviors in animals is generally higher in close confinement than it is in more extensive and complex situations (Broom 1991, p. 4173). Clubb & Mason (2002, p. 227230) list as possible causative factors of stereotypic behavior in captive elephants, restriction of movement, social factors, complexity of the physical environment and foraging motivation. Of these factors, foraging motivation may be particularly significant given that elephants naturally spend 40 to 70 percent of each 24-hour period in feeding (Sukumar 2003, p. 198). Research into the causes of elephant stereotypies would help define the causes of aberrant elephant behavior and 102

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ill health in zoos, as well as delineate the practices that really benefit captive elephants from those that merely appear to do so. In the end, the impartial observer is left with a choice: accept that traditional systems of elephant management, established for utilitarian purposes, are adequate for meeting the welfare needs of zoo elephants—either as they are or with relatively minor adjustments—or accept that field work now enables a more insightful approach based on the biology of wild elephants. If the latter choice is made, then the central questions should be, “What is the form and function of this animal? What environmental forces have shaped it and to what ends? How does the elephant construct an understanding of its world?” The goal of zoos should be to make captive elephants more like wild elephants. They should seek to establish conditions in which elephants can be elephants, conditions that are analogous to the wild, allowing the expression of as full a range of behaviors and activities as are required to support the natural development of each individual as a socially functioning entity independent of direct human manipulation and control. This goal needs careful discussion and refinement, with, above all, the critical guidance of field scientists who are expert in the biology of elephants. We might propose an outline of the fundamental characteristics of the species, the things about elephants for which any situation of captivity, certainly any zoo, should be required to account, explicitly and in detail. A new approach is possible to the management of elephant life in human care. A moral perspective—elephant capabilities New thinking by Nussbaum (2006) about the moral status of animals argues that applying notions of basic justice to animals involves the concept of a “life with dignity.” While acknowledging that, “Animals, like humans, often don’t miss what they don’t know,” Nussbaum proposes a “capabilities approach” where the “deep needs and abilities” of an individual animal are recognized and accounted for in defining a life with dignity. This approach holds that “the species norm (duly evaluated) tells us what the appropriate benchmark is for judging whether a given creature has decent opportunities for flourishing.” The ethical issue in relation to any given capability is the extent to which the individual animal is harmed by being unable to exercise that capability. Great caution is required in defining harm because as humans we are “strongly biased in favor of our own power interests.” “The capabilities approach, which begins from an ethically attuned concern for each form of animal life, offers a model that does justice to the complexity of animal lives and their strivings for flourishing. Such a model seems an important part of a fully global theory of justice” (Nussbaum 2006). Applying this model to elephants, we must consider their capabilities—their deep needs and abilities. Field biology tells us that elephants, fundamentally, need “family life”: individuals should be born into families of related cows and should grow up under the care and support of a mother, female siblings and aunts. Elephants also need to live in an environment with which they can interact, having access to varied terrain and vegetation across an extensive area. Furthermore it becomes apparent that elephants should be allowed the largest measure of control over their own lives within the necessary constraints that must be imposed. They should be able to choose where in their environment to go and when, what to do when they get there, what and when to eat and drink, whom to associate with and when. This suggests that in captivity “elephant training” should be designed entirely to enhance elephant lives by increasing not just immediate physical security but the exercise of free choice. This moral view compels the case for a more biologically attuned approach to the management 103

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of elephants in zoos. Capabilities and the question of space The issue of how much space zoo elephants need in order to flourish sits at the heart of the public debate about zoo elephant welfare. Zoos have long regarded that any assessment of the “biological needs” of the species in their care must include consideration of “enough space to house a biologically large enough sample of individuals for normal social interaction and stimulation” (Curtis 1982, p. 59). Perhaps not surprisingly, given the role that tradition has played, when zoo elephants are considered, this question is often argued in isolation, again as if elephants are somehow categorically exceptional. By definition a captive animal has its needs met directly, or indirectly, through human agency. An animal’s needs include more than just a good diet and room in which to exercise to remain physically healthy; also included must be a host of factors affecting mental development of the individual. Again, in order to even begin to assess how an animal may be influenced by any captive environment, a careful accounting for the animal’s biological functioning—its capabilities—is required. How much space is required cannot be divorced from considerations of what sort of environment, overall, is required. As we have noted, Nussbaum (2006) recognizes the ethical distinction between the purpose of a “capability” (which may have no intrinsic ethical value) and the frustration the animal may experience if it cannot exercise this capability in some way (which may have value). The issue would seem to be how the animal experiences the world. Hediger may have anticipated Nussbaum, insofar as he reasoned consistently from the animal’s point of view and stated that an understanding of life in the wild was paramount (Hediger 1955, p. 12; Hediger 1969, p. 1). He considered that, generally, the quality of space provided to an animal is more important than the quantity (Hediger 1969, p. 22), a point strongly adopted by zoos (Curtis 1982, p. 59; Seidensticker & Doherty 1996, p. 187-188; BIAZA 2006). The central issue was about what the space would mean to the animal. Indeed it has been argued that if Hediger had a principal aim it was to understand the point of view of the wild animal in the zoo as an exercise in how humans and animals construct meaning (Turovski 2000, p. 308-387). For intelligent social species such as elephants, in which much of behavior and the ability to function is learned within the context of a nurturing society, any consideration of overall environmental requirements must include not only a careful consideration of how the animal will construct a coherent understanding of the world in which it lives, but also an ethical examination of just what this understanding should be. If elephants can be trained to accept conditions that are far from natural, we must ask the questions, “How far is it acceptable to depart from natural conditions? How much independent agency should we foster in the individual elephant?” These questions can only be answered after a careful consideration and evaluation of the characteristics—the capabilities—of wild elephants. Questions of sustainability A more biologically attuned approach to zoo elephants, if implemented, will have profound implications for both the way that elephants as individuals are managed and the way in which any sustainable population of zoo elephants is managed over time. Zoos are currently forced to make decisions about the amount of space provided to elephants within severe practical constraints—the physical area of the zoo itself and the resources available for elephants. While operating within such constraints, zoo associations attach considerable importance to the notion of sustaining captive zoo populations of elephant species through time, proposing that such populations are of both indirect, 104

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educational value, and direct value to the overall conservation of elephant species (Standley & Embury 2004; AZA Elephant TAG/SSP 2006; Hutchins & Keele 2006, p. 223). This presents zoos with an ethical dilemma in which the interests of individual elephants must be weighed against the perceived interests of the zoo population as a whole. Zoos have recently taken some steps to try to balance these questions with, for example, decisions to move bull elephants to cows for breeding purposes rather than to separate cows for extended periods from any social grouping they may enjoy (Standley & Embury 2004, p. 54; Stevenson & Walter 2006, p. 62). From a moral perspective, Nussbaum’s capabilities approach to defining welfare attaches no ethical value, per se, to increasing numbers in a population of the species or to the survival of the species as a whole. Issues of justice concern “harms” to the species only insofar as these harms affect the individual (Nussbaum 2006). If zoo populations of elephants are to be sustained—and it is debatable that they need to be for any conservation purposes—what does elephant biology suggest as an appropriate approach to management that will enable individual elephants to realize their capabilities and truly flourish? We might propose management based on component families of related individuals. Movement of genes between isolated groupings could indeed be almost exclusively via male elephants. The management of bull elephants in zoos would become a great deal more sophisticated. These requirements, in turn, seem logically to call for zoos to pool their resources to keep more elephants in far fewer places. These places could be located where climate is benign for elephants, obviating the need for elephants to spend extended periods of time indoors. Large areas, hundreds of acres in extent, could be provided for elephant families, where food can be grown for them, or better still, regenerated, on a rotational basis. Human resources would be devoted far less to the training and management of individuals, and more to the management of the extensive captive environment. The “enrichment” of elephant life could come through naturalistic social life and constant interaction with an extensive and varied environment. Finally though, zoos may need to face honestly the question of whether attempts to sustain genetically and demographically viable captive populations of elephants through time can ever be compatible with an ethical perspective of elephants as individuals. This question is particularly pertinent in North America, where analysis of the existing captive populations concludes that they cannot be sustained without further importation of individuals (Weise 2000; Hutchins & Keele 2006) and in Australasia where the establishment of a viable population of Asian elephants is configured around a limited number of bull elephants and the intensive use of artificial breeding techniques. An alternative vision An alternative vision could frame the activities of zoos from here forward in seeking to improve the welfare of the elephants they currently hold. Initially the skills zoos have developed in the training and manipulation of elephants could be applied to the task of rehabilitating existing captive elephants, wherever possible. This would involve restoring independent agency to individuals, encouraging them to build a new understanding of a more extensive and enriching social and physical environment. Such a social environment would not be “naturalistic,” but some groups might, over time, through births and the collective rearing of offspring, become more naturalistic in their composition and behavior. Candidate elephants might include not only those in zoos but also animals currently held in circuses or work camps in Southeast Asia. The management of bull elephants would continue to need particular attention and the requirement for younger and older bulls to interact presents a particular challenge. The entire project should be regarded as a grand 105

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experiment that at least might improve the lives of many zoo elephants in captivity today. The animals themselves would be challenged, stimulated and frightened (Derby, Chapter 15) at various times, but with sufficient thought and care, the outcomes would be increased independence, motivation and confidence in the individual elephants. Indeed, initially, the need for careful profiling of individual animals and deliberate planning for their future would be even more vitally important than it is under prevailing conditions. The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee (see Buckley, Chapter 14 and http://www. elephants.com) and the Performing Animal Welfare Society (Derby, Chapter 15), provide instructive examples where some of these ideas have been formulated, and are being put into practice, particularly as they apply to cow elephants. Estimation and experimentation is applied in introducing former zoo and circus elephants that are essentially naïve, and sometimes patently socially dysfunctional, to each other and to extensive areas in which they will live. The process of introduction is tailored to each individual according to its history and aims to restore independent motivation and confidence over time. This is often a long process of many small steps, the hallmarks of which are free choice, positive reinforcement and a concomitant absence of any sort of coercion. For most individuals, the process of adjustment will take the remainder of their lives. This new vision for captive elephant management essentially turns the traditional concepts of elephants in zoos on their head. The elephant enclosure is no longer an impoverished “playpen” occupied for a few hours a day, but an extensive living space. For humans to see elephants in such places becomes a far more special and valuable experience. The animals are presented in a context that enables them to function, as far as possible, according to species-typical patterns selected over millennia of evolution. Implementing this vision in North America would probably require no more money than the AZA says will be spent by the 40-plus institutions that plan to expand and upgrade their elephant exhibits over the next five to 10 years (AZA 2005). The provision of no more than 10 elephant sanctuaries, each of some hundreds of acres in extent, located within the more benign climatic zones of the United States, could be cooperatively established within the same time frame. Conclusions Many—and probably most—zoos are trapped in an outmoded tradition of elephant keeping, in part because of the manner in which elephants were first handled, in part because of their constrained physical locations, in part because of money. First, zoo elephants are not working elephants. Zoo elephants should be approached as wild animals and their care should be developed according to the same principles that are widely promoted by zoos as most appropriate for the husbandry of other wild species. Tradition can actually teach us little about how elephants should be treated by humans if we adopt the perspective of elephants as wild animals. Careful consideration of the capabilities of wild elephants, as described by field biologists, can help zoos adopt such a perspective. Taking this different, biological perspective will place large burdens on zoos but not ones that are insurmountable. Zoos will have to face honestly the question of whether there is really any genuine need to face the enormous challenges to effective genetic management of captive elephant populations. Current plans may not be compatible with delivery of elephant welfare, particularly social welfare. The future for zoo elephants must involve more social opportunity, more naturalistic family life, more independence and choice and, for all these things, more space. The question remains whether the practical limitations that these considerations must necessarily impose, will prevent 106

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zoos from establishing their own viable captive populations and demand a broader, more creative approach to the stewardship of captive populations and of wild elephants across their natural range. References

Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 2005. Top ten AZA elephant success stories: 2005 a banner year for elephants in AZA accredited zoos. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.aza.org// Newsroom/PR_Top10ElephStories/. Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 2006. Mission statement elephant taxon advisory group/species survival plan elephant. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.elephanttag.org/. British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 2006. The welfare of zoo animals. Animal Care. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.biaza.org.uk/public/pages/care/index.asp. Broom DM. 1991. Animal welfare: concepts and measurements. J Anim Sci. 69(10):4167-4175. Clubb R, Mason G. 2002. A review of the welfare of elephants in European zoos. Horsham, UK: RSPCA. Curtis L. 1982. Husbandry of mammals. In: Sausman K, ed. Zoological park and aquarium fundamentals. Wheeling, WV: AAZPA. p. 245-255. Diamond J. 1998. Guns, germs and steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. London,UK: Jonathan Cape. Hediger H. 1955. Studies of the psychology and behaviour of captive animals in zoos and circuses. London, UK: Butterworth Scientific Publications. (English Language translation by Geoffrey Sircom). Hediger H. 1969. Man and animal in the zoo: zoo biology. London, UK: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. (English language translation by Gwynne Vevers and Winwood Reade). Hutchins M. 2006. Variation in nature: its implications for zoo elephant management. Zoo Biol 25:161-71. Hutchins M, Keele M. 2006. Elephant importation from range countries: ethical and practical considerations for accredited zoos. Zoo Biol 25:219-233. International Species Information System 2006. Abstracts. Retrieved September 29, 2006, from http://app. isis.org/abstracts/abs.asp. Lair R. 1997. Gone astray: the care and management of the Asian elephant in domesticity. Bangkok, Thailand: FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) Publication 1997/16. Lees C. 2004. Captive management plan for Asian elephant. Mosman, Australia: ARAZPA. Milroy AJW. 1922. A short treatise on the management of elephants. In: Bist SS, ed. A.J.W. Milroy’s management of elephants in captivity. New Delhi, India: Natraj Publishers 2002. Nussbaum MC. 2006. The moral status of animals. Chron Higher Ed 52. Retrieved March 2, 2006, from http://chronicle.com/fgree/v52/i22/22b00601.htm. Seidensticker J, Doherty JG. 1996. Integrating animal behavior and exhibit design. In: Kleiman D, Allen ME, Thompson KV, Lumpkin S, Harris H, eds. Wild mammals in captivity: principles and techniques. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Standley S, Embury A. 2004. Guidelines for management of elephants in Australasian (ARAZPA) zoos, revised first edition, December 2004. Mosman, Australia: ARAZPA. Stevenson M, Walter O. 2006. Management guidelines for the welfare of zoo animals: elephant: Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus, 2nd ed. London, UK: British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria. Sukumar R. 2003. The living elephants: evolutionary ecology, behavior and conservation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Turovski A. 2000. The semiotics of animal freedom: a zoologist’s attempt to perceive the semiotic aim of H. Hediger. Sign Sys Stud 28:380-87. Weise RJ. 2000. Asian elephants are not self-sustaining in North America. Zoo Biol 19:299-309. 107

Weise RJ, Willis K. 2004. Calculation of longevity and life expectancy in captive elephants. Zoo Biol 23:363-73.

Peter Stroud worked in major Australian zoos for 23 years, as a keeper, curator and director. From 1993 to 2003 he was active in the development of zoo elephant management in the Australasian region. He now works as an independent consultant. He is a member of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. Peter may be contacted at 17 Ellen Avenue Keilor East, Victoria 3033, Australia, and [email protected].

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