The elephant welfare initiative: a model for advancing evidence-based zoo animal welfare monitoring, assessment and enhancement
Abstract
The Elephant Welfare Initiative (EWI) is an effort supported by a community of member zoos with the common goal of advancing evidence‐based elephant‐care practices that enhance welfare. The idea for the EWI came about following the completion of a large‐scale North American elephant welfare study, which demonstrated that daily practices, such as social management, enrichment and exercise, play a critical role in improving the welfare of elephants in zoos. In 2014, the Elephant Taxon Advisory Group of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums expressed an interest in building upon the results of this study to support the continued assessment of elephant programmes and implementation of enhanced management practices. The EWI is supported by a web‐based system of software tools and resources. In contrast to traditional record‐keeping systems, the EWI tools provide participants with real‐time analysis as well as zoo‐ and elephant‐level metrics for key welfare indicators and associated management practices. Members’ data are pooled to create opportunities for benchmarking, and to leverage the collective efforts of individual organizations to address elephant welfare challenges and generate the data necessary to identify evidence‐based strategies for enhanced outcomes. Future considerations include extending the EWI model to other species in managed settings, and to support transitional programmes for in situ elephant reintroduction efforts.
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There is no evidence to suggest environmental enrichment allows species like elephants to flourish in captive facilities.
“whereas some directed enrichment methods may appear to have a positive impact in specific ways (Ramírez et al., 2023), there is no evidence to suggest it allows species like elephants to flourish in captive facilities (Meehan et al., 2019”
From Continuing challenges of elephant captivity: the captive environment, health issues, and welfare implications (2024) · cites this paper as Meehan et al., 2019
There have been several recent advances in developing systematic evidence-based welfare assessment methods for captive elephants.
“To that end, there have been several recent advances in developing systematic evidence-based welfare assessment methods for captive elephants (Meehan et al., 2019;Williams et al., 2019aWilliams et al., , 2019b;;Yon et al., 2019;Bansiddhi, Brown & Thitaram, 2020;Bansiddhi et al., 2020”
From Continuing challenges of elephant captivity: the captive environment, health issues, and welfare implications (2024) · cites this paper as Meehan et al., 2019
EWI provides real-time analyses at individual and institutional levels that assist in benchmarking and monitoring changes.
“It provides real-time analyses at individual and institutional levels that assist in benchmarking and monitoring changes.”
From Comparison of animal welfare assessment tools and methodologies: need for an effective approach for captive elephants in Asia (2024) · cites this paper as [95]
EWI is a software-based online tool endorsed by the Elephant Taxon Advisory Group of the AZA as a follow-up to a series of multi-institutional epidemiological studies conducted in North America.
“The EWI is a software-based online tool endorsed by the Elephant Taxon Advisory Group of the AZA as a follow-up to a series of multi-institutional epidemiological studies conducted in North America (95).”
From Comparison of animal welfare assessment tools and methodologies: need for an effective approach for captive elephants in Asia (2024) · cites this paper as [95]
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“In 2016, a series of epidemiological studies of elephants in North American zoos revealed problems associated with ovarian acyclicity (45), health and musculoskeletal function (46), stereotypic behaviors (35), and high body condition scores (47).”
Method
- Authors
- Meehan, C., Greco, B., Lynn, B., Morfeld, K., Vicino, G., Orban, D., Gorsuch, C., Quick, M., Ripple, L., Fournier, K., & Moore, D.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University of Wisconsin–River Falls (US)
- AWARE Institute 3212 NW Wilson Street Portland Oregon 97210‐1249 USA
- Zoo Miami (US)
- Zoological Society of San Diego (US)
- Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden (US)
- Kansas Health Sciences Center (US)
- Centre Jeunesse de Quebec (CA)
- Oregon Zoo (US)
- Corresponding author
- Meehan, C.
- Venue
- International Zoo Yearbook
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2019-06-17
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 45-61
- ISSN
- 0074-9664 (ISSN-L)
- 1748-1090
- OpenAlex
- W2949238764
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 1.98
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Zoo Yearbook (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- social management, environmental enrichment, physical activity, welfare indicators, benchmarking, data pooling, web-based monitoring tool, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, managed care
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