By Susan Milius
A controversial new study raises the possibility that female elephants have been living half-lives if they’re born in zoos.
For the African species, zoo-born female elephants tend to live 16.9 years in European zoos, says Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Canada. Their counterparts in Amboseli National Park in Kenya who die of natural causes live an average of 56 years. When adding in human-caused deaths in Amboseli, the comparison is 16.9 in captivity to 35.9 years in the park, she and her colleagues report in the December 12 Science.
For the Asian species, the news isn’t much better. Zoo-born females averaged 18.9 years in European zoos, but those living in Myanmar’s logging areas lived an average 41.7 years.
“Within the group of authors we have different attitudes toward zoos,” Mason says. What the group agrees on, she says, is that zoos should be able to demonstrate that, if they’re going to keep elephants, they should do so without heightening mortality risks.