An Opinion Commentary by Barry Kent MacKay (October 2023)
Those of us involved in conservation keep reading in news articles that rhino horn is used as an aphrodisiac, presumably a primal form of Viagra. Nope. Not true; it’s used for everything from dagger handles to headaches, but not to help men be more manly! However, the meme is so well established it seems impossible to stamp out, almost as difficult as trying to convince folks there is no such species as a sea gull, among some 54 actual species of gull.
And here’s another such idea that keeps appearing – that zoos are protecting elephants from extinction.
Latest iteration I know of kame from KWCH, a Kansas radio news station on September 15th, trumpeting the news that Sedgwick County Zoo is transporting Ajani, a 23 year old male African Elephant, to the Toledo Zoo, Ohio, “…for the betterment of the species.”
Bull! The Sedgwick County Zoo keepers were overflowing with anthropomorphic praise for Ajani. “His gentle nature taught the females how caring a bull can be.” He also was a role model for Titan, a younger male.
News flash: Elephants don’t do all that well in traditional zoo captivity. Their physiology evolved to require conditions, including an ability to travel longer distances over more variable substrates, that zoos cannot provide. Captive elephants tend to develop various chronic ailments including painful arthritis, as well as psychological issues, such as boredom, frustration and anxiety, to name just three. The reality is that zoos don’t come close to simulating the social conditions and stimulus complexity found in the wild.
And that’s bad enough. But what really irritates me is the fact that knowing most of us want such wonderful animals to be happy and content, we need reassurance that their endless confinement serves some worthy purpose, hence the meme that somehow breeding captive elephants in Kansas or Ohio will save the species in Africa.
Um…no…Elephants creating more elephants through the process of breeding does not require their imprisonment. Adult elephants know how to produce baby elephants without our help, and do so best right where they belong, when allowed to live.
The problem is the value of things that can be taken from their dead bodies, ivory tusks most particularly, but also skins and meat. The people of Africa who don’t want to lose their elephants (and those of Asia, with a different elephant species) know the problem and work to prevent more elephants from being killed than can be produced, through natural breeding, as generation after generation has done since before Australopithecus lurked in the tall grasses the veldt. None of those elephants come or ever came from Ohio, Kansas, or any other zoo. It’s not necessary. There may be species of wildlife, like the California Condor, that are captive bred and released, the entire process helping assure the survival of the species. But not African or Asian Elephants.
Zoo elephants, at most, help to maintain a population of zoo elephants, although to provide the necessary genetic vigor, there is, within the zoo community, a demand for fresh blood – or, actually, fresh genes. But if the species is to survive there are many things people should do, or not do, for elephants. Imprisoning elephants is not one of them.