Elephants Elephants - Wildpro - Twycross Zoo

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when his residency within the herd is no longer being tolerated, typically
during adolescence and be put in protected contact from a certain age. This
will vary with individuals; it can be as young as three or as old as eight or
nine. From the age of four regular updates of a bull’s profile notes and a six
monthly review MUST take place in combination with a risk assessment as
the character of individual bulls will largely determine how they can be
managed.
A bull during musth may show behaviour that makes him difficult to manage
so zoos should be prepared to house difficult bulls. To that end, all bulls
MUST be maintained in such a way that at the very least they can be
separated from females and other males. However, it is not acceptable to keep
bulls in physical and social isolation until required for breeding 1.
All collections keeping bulls MUST have the facility to carry out any essential
veterinary procedure in such a way that is safe for all staff and the elephant
concerned 2.
In the long term the zoo community needs to address the issue of captive
elephant bulls and the likely overall increase in number since this will
seriously compromise the conservation breeding performance of zoos by
taking up valuable accommodation. The way forward may well be to explore
the feasibility of keeping bulls in bachelor herds in zoos capable of providing
enough space. At this moment in time, the feasibility of such an approach has
not been fully tested, but should be considered. All collections keeping bulls
MUST ensure that staff are adequately trained (see Section 3.8).
CALVES
It is important that calves are brought up in a matriarchal group. Calves have
a long learning period and socialisation with other elephants is crucial. Efforts
should therefore be made to integrate hand-reared animals back to the group
as soon as possible. Females need to learn calf care, and the presence of a
young animal in the group benefits all members.
NOCTURNAL BEHAVIOUR
Elephants continue to be active after the public and keeping staff have left.
Research has shown that elephants are most active between 1800 and 2400 and
0600 and 0700, exhibiting the normal social repertoire, social interactions and
feeding behaviour. In general, observations show that animals are active for
more than 50% of the ‘nocturnal’ period (Brockett et al 1999) (Weisz et al 2000).
These observations, hardly surprisingly, demonstrate that captive elephants
are active for around the same period in captivity as in the wild (i.e. sleeping
for a maximum of five hours in 24). Thus zoos MUST strive to keep animals
in unrestricted social groupings at night and provided with sufficient
1 Section on bull management has been clarified.
2 In the UK only WWAP currently has a chute. It cost approximately 15K GBP and was copied
from the one in Burnet Park. It is a squeeze with one movable wall.