Edit Draft Oregon Zoo and others across North America plan a three-year elephant-welfare

Visitors get their first look at Samudra, the elephant calf born at the Oregon Zoo in 2008. Zoo managers hope to continue to grow the herd.

Questions about zoo elephants loom larger than the beasts themselves:

Are they healthy? Happy or depressed? Mellow or stressed? Do they get enough exercise? If they lived in larger groups, would they reproduce more reliably? If they were free to choose how they spend their days, and with whom, would it be better for them?

Answers might come after an unprecedented, three-year study led by the Oregon Zoo and six partner institutions gets under way Dec. 1, funded by an $800,000 grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. "Using Science to Understand Elephant Welfare" will involve all 290 Asian and African elephants housed in zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Zoos with pachyderms were not required to participate, but all signed on.

The study comes at a time when such facilities are:

** Under attack from animal activists who claim zoos can't possibly give elephants what they need, given space constraints;

** Facing academic criticism for failing to use science to guide elephant care;

** Being forced to choose whether to build bigger, better facilities and grow their herds -- an expensive and challenging commitment -- or get rid of the animals many zoos consider their signature species and favorite draw for visitors.

"The whole point of it," says Mike Keele, the Oregon Zoo's director of elephant habitats, "is we'll end up with science-based benchmarks for what looks like good welfare. What doesn't?"

Plus, Keele says, if it's sufficiently illuminating, "this sort of study could be done on other species," leading to improved care for many more animals.

Elephant care has evolved, particularly since the 1990s, when standards were minimal. Today, AZA-member zoos in the United States and Canada follow standards adopted in 2001 and updated since. They dictate everything from training regimens to optimal temperatures inside barns; from how much time elephants should be allowed outdoors to how many years, at a minimum, offspring should remain with their mothers.

By and large, though, standards were developed based on experience rather than science. Elephant programs and opinions on best practices vary widely from zoo to zoo. It's even hard, Keele says, to get agreement about what "welfare" and "well-being" mean when it comes to animal care.

"We realized," he says, "there is no science, and why aren't we doing it?"

That was an essential question raised in the book "An Elephant in the Room: The Science and Well-being of Elephants in Captivity," written by a long list of experts and published in 2008 by the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University. Authors argue that because most zoos have little room to expand, they avoid "collecting empirical evidence that might help to answer the question of just how much and what sort of living space an elephant needs."

While the upcoming study may not specifically answer that, veterinary crews will comb through a decade of medical records for every elephant 10 years or older, as well as records for younger animals, looking for common health issues.

Bi-weekly blood samples from every animal will give chemistry baselines and may help with nutrition analysis.

Fecal samples and saliva will be evaluated to assess stress.

Photos will be systematically taken of each elephant, then studied for similarities and differences. The pictures may offer information about health and nutrition; obesity is common among zoo animals, and can be especially harmful for elephants prone to arthritis. Photos should help managers establish optimum body condition.

The amount and types of training will be examined, and so will keepers' perceptions of animals' personalities and moods. "We believe that the elephant keepers know when the elephants are happy, but there's no science to prove that," Keele says. "We hope to quantify that they really do know how their elephants are feeling."

Social groupings will be studied to see, for instance, how well new animals integrate into herds.

The animals' behavior will be charted to learn more about how they use their spaces, and whether exhibit components are ample to keep elephants active throughout the day. Some zoos, including Oregon's, are spending millions to enlarge exhibits, yet there's no science on the effects of space on elephant welfare.

Even as the study launches, the Oregon Zoo will forge ahead with big changes. Managers want to grow the zoo's seven-elephant herd and keepers are giving cows Shine, Rose-Tu and Chendra opportunities to breed with Tusko, one of four bulls. None is pregnant. Rose gave birth to Samudra about two years ago, shortly before voters approved a $125 million zoo bond measure, approximately $30 million earmarked for new on- and off-site elephant facilities.

The elephant welfare study is being coordinated by the Honolulu Zoo.

Courtesy of John Goodall
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What a brilliant, brilliant idea. Finally, and it it well about time. Get it all out on the table, and study it from a scientific point of view. Now let's get busy and do a study on elephant behavior. Things like who handled them as youngsters, how fast was their training, what percentage of elephants trained by whom, and how fast ended up being problem animals etc. etc. Let's answer the critics once and for all with fact's and not speculation.