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Animal welfare concerns about elephants in captivity stem from the uniqueness of elephants' social structure, biology, size, and spatial requirements. [7] In the wild, elephants sometimes walk 50 miles a day, [ 7 ] while the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in the United States recommends a minimum of 5400 ft 2 (500 m 2 ) of space per ...
Elephants tend to have high numbers of parasites, particularly nematodes, compared to many other mammals. This may be due to elephants being less vulnerable to predation; in other mammal species, individuals weakened by significant parasite loads are easily killed off by predators, removing them from the population. [98]
This may be due to the fact that with proper treatment, captivity can provide refuge against diseases, competition with others of the same species and predators. Most notably, animals with shorter lifespans and faster growth rates benefit more from zoos than animals with higher longevities and slow growth rates. [2]
About half of the global zoo elephant population is kept in European zoos, where they have less than half (18.9 years) the median life span of conspecifics (41.6 years) in protected populations in range countries. This discrepancy is clearest in Asian elephants: infant mortality is more than two to three times that seen in Burmese timber camps ...
The elephants have grown up in captivity, meaning they are not accustomed to large herds and other aspects of their natural habitats. Consequently, experts concluded that animal sanctuaries are ...
Analysis of nuclear DNA sequences indicates that the genetic divergence between African bush and forest elephants dates 2.6 – 5.6 million years ago. The African forest elephant was found to have a high degree of genetic diversity, likely reflecting periodic fragmentation of their habitat during the changes in the Pleistocene. [12]
An elephant never forgets might be an exaggeration, but elephants actually have the largest brains of all land mammals. An adult elephant’s weighty brain reaches nearly 11 pounds- that’s 8 ...
In one instance, between 2006 and 2013, the population in East Africa fell by 62% due to high poaching pressures. Tanzania (where 80% of the East African population reside) lost the most elephants, while the resident population in Somalia went locally extinct. South Sudan, on the other hand, experienced an increase in elephants.