Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

3.3.1 Social Structure
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Elephants are one of the most social mammals and this should be borne in
mind when managing them in captivity. Zoos MUST maintain elephants in
as appropriate a social group as possible so that welfare needs, education and
conservation potential can all be fully realised. The best way to achieve this is
to replicate the social organisation seen in the wild. The broad similarity
between the social organisation of African and Asian elephants means that
management recommendations for the social environment is essentially the
same for both species, however Asian and African animals MUST not be
mixed in the same social grouping.
There is a need for the maintenance of appropriate social units not only for
welfare and educational grounds but also for conservation. Conservation
does not merely entail the preservation of genetic diversity, which, arguably,
could be carried out far more cheaply in cryo-preserved gene banks, but
MUST provide for the preservation of ‘cultural’ and learnt elements of an
animals natural behaviour. In elephants, as in the great apes, much of their
behavioural repertoire is learnt rather than innate; so that to truly ‘conserve’
as opposed to ‘preserve’ elephants in captivity as many naturally learnt
behaviours and cultural elements should be maintained as possible.
COWS
The basic social unit of the elephant is the family unit (see Section 2.9). If not
keeping a bachelor herd, zoos MUST establish stable female groups,
preferably of related animals, in order to replicate the wild state. Thus zoos
MUST strive to keep a minimum group size of four compatible cows older
than two years 1. Zoos SHOULD STRIVE to ensure that for not less than 16
hours in any given 24 hour period, save in exceptional circumstances,
compatible females have unrestricted access to each other. Thus whilst
elephant facilities MUST retain the potential to separate elephants as
required, routine and prolonged separation of compatible cows MUST not be
practised. Separation is taken to include any barrier which restricts complete
physical access. Facilities which have compatibility issues, such that
individual cows are kept separated for prolonged periods of time, MUST
ensure that these situations are resolved expediently. In these circumstances,
the removal of individual elephants may be justified.
Particular care should be taken when leaving elephant groups unattended,
particularly in houses. An objective assessment of risk of injury MUST be
undertaken before giving unrestricted access to the house and each other for
the first time. Staff should monitor the animals and be available to intervene if
required and safe to do so.
Cows should be reviewed as to whether they should go into protected contact.
Once an animal has physically challenged a keeper it MUST be put into
1 This section has been clarified.